I have a theory. There is a simple thing hospitalists can do that can enhance relationships with our patients, and even, I bet, improve patient satisfaction scores. The catch is it is not something you can do for yourself; you can only “pay it forward” for somebody else.
We know patients who trust their physicians are more likely to follow recommendations, and that trust and confidence in physicians …
“We are playing the same sport, but a different game,” the wise, thoughtful emergency medicine attending physician once told me. “I am playing speed chess – I need to make a move quickly, or I lose – no matter what. My moves have to be right, but they don’t always necessarily need to be the optimal one. I am not always thinking five moves ahead. You guys [in internal medicine] …
With the recent election, there has been a new recognition of the various “bubbles” we all seem to be living in. It reminds me of the parable I like to often mention, popularized by the late great writer David Foster Wallace:
Two fish were swimming along when an older fish swam by, nodded his head at them and said, “Mornin’ boys, how’s the water?” The two young fish nod back and …
“You must respect the body you are trying to heal.”
I heard this said twice into my headphones, the second time more slowly and firmly than the first, while I sat on the runway about to take off. It continued to echo in my head over the course of the flight. As a physician, the reference to healing a body has obvious resonance. However, as I embarked on yet another gathering …
There is little doubt that over the next few years we will see a wave of increasingly sophisticated point-of-care tools to help clinicians determine the costs and relative value of their medical recommendations. I welcome that day, but I do not intend to idly sit by waiting for it.
Not all solutions need to be based on high-level algorithms or slick, user-friendly apps made for iPhones.
Last month I came across a …
I learned a lot of medicine during residency, but perhaps I actually learned even more about how to just get things done in a hospital. If you wanted a right-upper-quadrant ultrasound done for our patient, I was your man. I had a complicated series of unwritten algorithmic flow diagrams in my head that included handwriting an order, making sure that it was faxed to the right number, calling the appropriate …
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