It was a dimly lit room, up on the sixth floor. I am not sure why they would not fix the light in that corridor. Even during the day, I would find this area poorly lit.
Maybe it was not the light but the grim atmosphere of oncology floor. Some of the patients there had terminal illnesses but they would still act like they had decades to live. You would be …
Doctors are trained to prevent death, but not deal with death
by Dennis Grace
Recognize the title? It’s from Steve Martin’s 1978 stand-up album, Wild and Crazy Guy. Martin lists How to Make Money Off the Mentally Ill as one of the many books he’s written. The joke is supposed to be on Martin himself, inviting us to ask, “What kind of disreputable jerk takes advantage of the mentally ill?”
But it’s just a …
How to make money off the mentally ill
In case you have not heard about it, there is a very gut wrenching court case St Louis Park, MN. A doctor in the hospital system is going to court to replace a patient’s wife, Lana Barnes, with a substitute decision maker, claiming that she is making futile and reckless decisions to prolong her near-vegetative husband’s life.
He has …
The futility of prolonging life and the benefit to patients
One of the topics I went to China to discuss was our medical school’s approach to teaching medical ethics.
At Wuhan University they have a first-year course, but I was told by both the school administrators and some of the students that the material is dry and not seen of immediate importance, so students often skip the class.
Here’s how …
Medical ethics at hospitals and medical schools in China
Here are a few facts to enliven the next public discussion about death panels.
An analysis of Medicare claims by researchers at Dartmouth University found that nationwide nearly one in three cancer patients died in hospitals or in intensive care, the most expensive form of end-of-life care and contrary to most patients’ wishes. Nearly half are not offered hospice …
Reduce variations in cancer care that do not improve outcomes
An excerpt from Doctor Confidential: Secrets Behind the Veil.
by Richard Sheff, MD
Dorothy suffered a second heart attack, leaving more of her heart muscle damaged and causing her to slip into congestive heart failure. There was not much we could do to reverse the many blockages in her arteries. Yet she was cheerful, as were her four children.
One morning Mary came to find me. “Dorothy says …
Giving the patient and family precious minutes to say goodbye
Dr. William Follansbee is the chairman of the American College of Cardiology/American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ACC/ASNC) task force on non-invasive cardiac imaging and the director of nuclear cardiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Cardiovascular Institute.
He recently published an editorial in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in which he criticized the local Blue Cross/Blue Shield carrier, Highmark, for restricting the use of nuclear cardiac stress testing in …
Restricting nuclear cardiac stress testing in favor of stress echocardiography
How important is it for hospitals to engage in social media platforms, such as Facebook or Twitter?
It’s essential.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the controversy concerning infant Joseph Maraachli. Without getting too involved in the politics or ethics …
Hospitals need an engaged social media presence on Facebook and Twitter
by John Rossheim
What’s the latest tool for recruiting the best clinicians to your hospital? Is it the professional pride of being associated with an organization that provides the best care in the region? Is it showing respect for the growing number of clinicians who seek to work hard but protect their personal lives from excessive intrusions in the form of frequent on-call duty or mandatory …
How your EHR can help with physician recruiting
It is hard to imagine that someone can emerge from intern year – 12 months of chaos, little sleep, and hours upon hours spent responding to pages and putting orders in a computer – and know something, anything, about medicine. I did not believe in this training system until now, after my first night as a supervising resident. The knowledge I have absorbed over the …
Gratitude from patients and their families
Just the other day I was called to see a patient coming up to the Intensive Care Unit with a diagnosis of pneumonia. Upon my arrival the patient is “hanging in there” with the blood pressure in the 60’ and 70’s systolic.
This is a no-brainer situation – the patient is in sepsis and septic shock.
Early intravenous antibiotics and aggressive resuscitation is what this gentleman needs right now. Per the ER …
Do Not Resuscitate and the need for a central line
I do not wish simply to use the buzz word of the hour. Nor do I wish to assert that I have all the answers.
I genuinely desire to bring to light an interesting conflict that has plagued the nursing profession for decades.
Bullying.
Why in a profession centered around the concepts of compassion, caring, and healing has a mindset of bullying permeated the culture. Even more confusing is that most often, this …
Bullying among nurses needs to stop
By now, most healthcare professionals — and many well-read consumers — are aware of the disturbingly high rate of surgical site infections (SSIs) in our nation’s hospitals.
Each year, approximately 500,000 surgical patients develop SSIs. In some types of operations, such as colorectal surgery, the rate is close to 10%.
Many hospitals submit information about SSIs in their institutions through the …
High rate of surgical site infections (SSIs) in our nation’s hospitals
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Mike Morrison tweets for Massachusetts General Hospital as @MassGeneralNews and for Massachusetts General Hospital for Children as @MGHfC.
I met Mike when I tweeted about the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine including @MassGeneralNews in my tweet and Mike immediately followed me.
I contacted him to find out what his strategy is for Twitter use and what the benefits have been.
Lisa: Let’s …
Social media strategy at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)
A decade and a half ago, when I moved to Memphis, I proudly hung a sign outside an office I shared with another doctor. It had my name followed by an MD. I had started my own small business as a solo practitioner in medicine.
Over the years, the practice has grown. I now have several employees and my own office, with the names of several other doctors alongside mine on …
Hospitals taking over private practices
by Rima Rudd, ScD
We take the written word for granted.
Signs and billboards are everywhere – offering directional information, alerts, warnings, and advertisements. Streets, public squares, buildings, agencies, and institutions are numbered and named. We are surrounded by the written word in public locations and within public and private institutions. Individual entrances and even elevators in some large buildings carry names. The lobby, the inside hallways, …
Literacy related difficulties in health settings and the written word
by Kate Gray
I call William my spirited child. Like many 3 year-olds, he loves to run and jump, and does it without the slightest sense of fear. His boundless energy has always been one of his most endearing features, but in a split second, it also almost took him from us forever.
A few days before Christmas, my husband Mark and I had some last minute holiday …
Forever grateful to the doctors and nurses who saved my son
The following op-ed was published on February 2, 2011 in USA Today.
Last fall, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital was shot by the distraught son of a patient for whom he was caring. The man later killed his mother, then himself. A week earlier, a patient in a Long Island, N.Y., hospital beat his nurse with a leg from a broken chair, causing serious injuries. The following month, a psychiatric …
Understanding patient violence against health care workers
Proton beam therapy is an effective modality for killing certain types of cancer cells. New England and the Northeast are fortunate to have a proton beam machine at Massachusetts General Hospital, where it has been in use for some time effectively treating patients. This is a valuable resource, serving the entire region and beyond.
But what happens when everyone wants one? Well, we see the medical arms race at work again.
These …
Proton beam therapy and the medical arms race
As far as my chemo nurse Olga (not her real name) is concerned, I can do nothing right.
She scolded me for sending an e-mail when she thought I should have called and vice versa. She scolded me for going home before my next appointment was scheduled. She scolded me for asking to speak to her personally instead of whichever nurse was available. She scolded me for calling my oncologist directly. …
Sharing information about your health with specialists is difficult
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