An excerpt from The Secret Language of Doctors: Cracking the Code of Hospital Culture.
When it comes to modern medical slang, there’s Before Shem and After Shem. Shem refers to Samuel Shem, the pen name of Dr. Stephen Bergman, psychiatrist and author of the blockbuster novel The House of …
The House of God brought attention to medical slang
Adapted from a keynote address given to the graduating medical class at the University of Toronto.
When I was asked to give the keynote to graduates of the class of ’14, it was an honor that nevertheless filled me with terror and a bit of wistfulness.
My sense of fear in giving advice to these amazing young doctors comes from not being sure I belong in the same company. They are whip smart, …
The human cost of physician burnout is almost unfathomable
Recently, the Philadelphia Flyers announced that all star defensive stalwart Chris Pronger has been shut down for the rest of the NHL season with what the team has described as “post-concussive syndrome”. Pronger joins Pittsburgh Penguin superstar Sidney Crosby, teammate and NHL leading scorer Claude Giroux, and Ottawa Senator forward and NHL second leading scorer Milan Michalek out of action due to concussion. To list every star player currently on the …
The phenomenon of concussions in professional sport
Ask most patients, and they say their doctor has a good reason for ordering tests and prescribing treatments. Turns out their doctor may secretly disagree. That’s the conclusion of a new study. The implications are more than a bit disturbing.
Researchers from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy conducted a survey of more than six hundred physicians. Forty-two percent of family doctors admitted that patients in their own practice receive too much care – meaning …
The impact of unnecessary testing and treatment on patients
Seniors spend a lot of time at hospital ER’s. Now, a small but growing number of hospitals in the US have built ER’s especially for the aging patient – with wider hallways, motion detectors, hearing and visual aids. To me, this is long overdue.
Older patients are avid consumers of emergency medical services. Older people make up a significant percentage of the total population of ER patients. A 2008 Read more…
An ER specifically built for older patients
When you think of surgeons, you likely picture heroes deftly using scalpels to pull patients back from the brink. But sometimes, as much as surgeons want to save someone, they simply can’t. A new survey finds that some of the men and women doing amazing feats of medicine in the OR don’t think quite so highly of themselves.
Suicidal thoughts could be the result of depression and job burnout. …
Surgeons with depression and suicidal thoughts don’t get the care they need
Recently, Dr. Philip Baker, Dean of the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Medicine, gave a speech to the graduating class at the convocation banquet held in Edmonton. Now, there are accusations that Dean Baker lifted much of his June 10 speech from a commencement address given by famed physician and essayist Dr. Atul Gawande at Stanford’s School of Medicine in June 2010.
As Baker gave his address last Friday, medical students …
A medical school dean plagiarized Atul Gawande in his commencement speech
When it comes to caring for the sick, it’s often assumed that health professionals and their patients usually get along.
But that’s not always true. Sales people call some of their customers difficult. Turns out that doctors do exactly the same thing with theirs. An article in the current issue of the journal Neurology provides a catalog of difficult …
When a patient evokes an emotional reaction from a physician
You’ve probably experienced that age-old ritual of cooling your heels in an ER waiting room hoping that it won’t be too many hours before a nurse lets you inside the sliding doors.
Simon Bradley tweeted this to my Twitter Account @WCBADoctorBrian: “My buddy had a deep laceration between the thumb and the index finger – a full layer of skin. Took 10 hours at (name of hospital withheld), fastest in town.”
A …
Can posting ER wait times be dangerous to patients?
Medical errors have been in the news lately. An Ontario provincial review probing unnecessary surgeries at a Windsor hospital found significant concerns with the work of a pathologist involved in a mistaken mastectomy case.
In the US, avoidable medical errors added $19.5 billion to the nation’s healthcare bill in 2008, according to a claims-based study conducted for the Society of Actuaries (SOA). The report lists the 10 most expensive errors in healthcare settings.
Here …
10 most expensive errors in healthcare settings
When I was a resident in internal medicine many years ago, I saw an elderly woman who came to the ER complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath. She had a history of heart disease. When I listened to her chest, the crackles I heard emanating from her wet lungs told me she had congestive heart failure. I treated her chest pain and gave her diuretics to help her get rid of the water that was making …
Reduce medical malpractice and create a culture of patient safety
An excerpt from The Night Shift: Real Life In The Heart of The E.R. ©2010 by Dr. Brian Goldman. Published with permission from HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Fear and Loathing
12:47 a.m.
Two police detectives were waiting for me near the main triage desk; one was a tall male in a sleek black suit, probably in his early forties. He was ruggedly handsome in the manner of Jean-Paul Belmondo, the French …
The Night Shift: Real life in the heart of the ER, an excerpt
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