I covered one of the chief residents in our hospital for two days recently, seeing more than 40 patients in total. My off-the-cuff remarks on Facebook still apply: “Twenty-two inpatients later, it is time once again to declare my awe and admiration for all who do this work daily: hospitalists, housestaff, nurses, techs, custodial staff (et al., et al.). And, of course, the patients who are — on the other side of the hospital mirror — working harder, in their way, than all of us.”

What’s more, I was struck — not for the first time — by the differences between the hospital and clinic, not just in tone, atmosphere, communication and pace, but in how those things affect medical thinking and decision making.

I am not talking about critical care or emergency medicine, nor about “codes” (cardiac resuscitation), merely because I do not participate in such care regularly. But I think my observations might still apply.

Simply put, the hospital operates under the assumption that things have to move faster. That tempo, I believe, encourages a certain frame of mind: We should treat, do, test. People are sick, we want to make them better, and lab tests and interventions are an avenue to this.

You already see where I’m going, because, if you know me or my blog, you know my bias. If anything, I think we tend to over-order as a health care system … and the scientific literature bears me out.

What would it mean to apply evidence-based medicine to hospital care, in a thorough-going fashion? I mostly do outpatient medicine, and guarantee you that I assume no superiority for the application of evidence-based medicine in that realm. No, much of what we do in clinic is still based on intuition, externalities, unsupported lore, personal preference (not the patient’s, God forbid, but our own as doctors), or some other blend of bias and conviction.

Would it be harder in the hospital to take stock? Would workflow be disrupted?

Or is it just that I am unaccustomed to the hospital, and things are really changing in that direction? What do you think?

Zackary Berger is an internal medicine physician.  He blogs at his self-titled site, Zackary Sholem Berger, and is the author of Talking to Your Doctor: A Patient’s Guide to Communication in the Exam Room and Beyond.