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Hospital medicine

5,188 articles · Since 2004

Articles, page 28

Conditions and diseases

The pandemic is bringing us home

It began last week in our neighborhood, between the locals, who, out for a breath of fresh air, and dutifully in line with the new social distancing rules, began to shout back and forth through the crisp March air. “Good…

It began last week in our neighborhood, between the locals, who, out for a breath of fresh air, and dutifully in line with the new social distancing rules, began to shout back and forth through the crisp March air.

“Good morning! I hope you’re well!”

“Good morning! We’re well! I hope you are, too!”

Then goodwill took over the neighborhood email chain.

Who needs a casserole?

Just let us know! We’ll drop one off at …

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The pandemic is bringing us home

Conditions and diseases

Health care workers are heroes

I spent the last week working in a large community hospital in a state with a soaring number of coronavirus cases. I previously had a few days off while this whole situation was escalating, and heard from colleagues that our…

I spent the last week working in a large community hospital in a state with a soaring number of coronavirus cases. I previously had a few days off while this whole situation was escalating, and heard from colleagues that our hospital was taking huge measures to prepare for the onslaught. New protocols were being put in place, there was a scramble for personal protective equipment (PPE), and the hospital had …

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Health care workers are heroes

Physician voices

Don’t underestimate patients’ emotions

There's a saying in medicine that: "If you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail." It's our way of acknowledging that we all suffer from a particular set of blinders unique to our own specialties. Usually, our focused way…

There’s a saying in medicine that: “If you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” It’s our way of acknowledging that we all suffer from a particular set of blinders unique to our own specialties. Usually, our focused way of viewing the patient facilitates our ability to serve them, to see their problem, and fix it. Occasionally, it prevents us from seeing that there may be a deeper meaning …

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Don’t underestimate patients’ emotions

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Physician voices

This doctor was called a bitch at work. Here’s what she did next.

As I hug my younger daughter's little head at school drop-off, the calming aroma of her hair fills me with peace. She scurries across the schoolyard toward her 2nd-grade classroom, her big backpack bouncing up and down, seemingly with its…

As I hug my younger daughter’s little head at school drop-off, the calming aroma of her hair fills me with peace. She scurries across the schoolyard toward her 2nd-grade classroom, her big backpack bouncing up and down, seemingly with its own agenda and dwarfing her tiny frame. As soon as I leave the school, my focus switches.

I’m at the edge of my patient’s hospital bed, reviewing the day’s treatment goals. …

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This doctor was called a bitch at work. Here’s what she did next.

Physician voices

Be the physician who supports other doctors

Medicine is a difficult calling. You already know the sacrifices. As an undergraduate, you gave up time with friends and family so you could be accepted into medical school — where you worked even harder. You understand that the practice…

Medicine is a difficult calling. You already know the sacrifices. As an undergraduate, you gave up time with friends and family so you could be accepted into medical school — where you worked even harder.

You understand that the practice of medicine requires you to take responsibility for the care of others … and the emotional toll that comes with it.

In this profession, it’s easy to feel like you’re alone. Our …

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Be the physician who supports other doctors

Physician voices

Riding the hospital common elevator

The elevator area on the ground floor of our hospital is split. As you enter, the common elevators are on the left, and to the right is a set of double doors, with a sign posted reading, “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.”…

The elevator area on the ground floor of our hospital is split. As you enter, the common elevators are on the left, and to the right is a set of double doors, with a sign posted reading, “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.” And behind those doors are the employee elevators, elevators for hospital beds, and large elevators where we can run a code while traveling up or down.

The employee elevators are private, …

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Riding the hospital common elevator

Physician voices

What is human-centered health care and why is it important?

An excerpt from Health Design Thinking: Creating Products and Services for Better Health. Design is the ancient practice of shaping materials to achieve goals and express beliefs. Human beings and other creatures make tools and build structures in order to…

An excerpt from Health Design Thinking: Creating Products and Services for Better Health.

Design is the ancient practice of shaping materials to achieve goals and express beliefs. Human beings and other creatures make tools and build structures in order to survive, thrive, and dominate their surroundings. Unlike other organisms, people learn from each other, creating new ideas and inventions that spread quickly.

Designers learn to look at a …

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What is human-centered health care and why is it important?

Patient voices

Dirty jeans and a positive patient experience

Recently, I made a doctor's appointment with a new physician at a different hospital system. During my last encounter with our family's primary care doctor, his angry, unprofessional and unnerving behavior not only scared me at the time — it…

Recently, I made a doctor’s appointment with a new physician at a different hospital system. During my last encounter with our family’s primary care doctor, his angry, unprofessional and unnerving behavior not only scared me at the time — it scared me away for good. So forced to navigate away from crazy — I found myself with this new doctor.

Upon entering the front door of the new medical center, I …

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Dirty jeans and a positive patient experience

Physician voices

You are the reason I became a physician

I can smell the wafting aroma of frying onions and tomatoes as I am upstairs, just waking for the day. I am 10 years old, and these aromas are the staple of my childhood. It brings back memories of home.…

I can smell the wafting aroma of frying onions and tomatoes as I am upstairs, just waking for the day. I am 10 years old, and these aromas are the staple of my childhood. It brings back memories of home. I walk downstairs and see my dad stirring the tomatoes and onions in the frying pan, dancing and singing: “I am cooking for my kid!” “Kid” is the term he …

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You are the reason I became a physician

Physician voices

Dear medicine: I’m breaking up with you

I'm breaking up with you. I fell in love with you when I was just a child sitting in my grandfather’s family practice office. He put that magical white coat on me, sat me at his desk, welcomed in my…

I’m breaking up with you.

I fell in love with you when I was just a child sitting in my grandfather’s family practice office. He put that magical white coat on me, sat me at his desk, welcomed in my first patient, and I was smitten.

I grew up playing medical guessing games with him and his best friend, the town surgeon. They told stories of home visits, generations of families they …

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Dear medicine: I’m breaking up with you

Medical education

Medical students are more than just numbers

Student G.M is a 228. When she came to our school, she was a 31. When she went to college, she was a 1270. Now we must make this number a caring, feeling person who has the empathy to impact…

Student G.M is a 228. When she came to our school, she was a 31. When she went to college, she was a 1270.

Now we must make this number a caring, feeling person who has the empathy to impact the lives of patients for decades.

Makes sense, right? Wrong!

I played basketball in college — intramural. I was not bad, but I was not good. I liked to go to the gym …

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Medical students are more than just numbers

Physician voices

Proper endings like this feel right

2

He was a logical man. A northeast Ohio man. Who worked all his life and worked hard. I can see it in his hands. They are entirely calloused with traces of grease impervious even to pumice soap. A family man.…

He was a logical man. A northeast Ohio man. Who worked all his life and worked hard. I can see it in his hands. They are entirely calloused with traces of grease impervious even to pumice soap.

A family man. His wife and sons and daughters are at bedside. And proud grandson, just a man, not dry-eyed, stands in the corner, in his college jacket, the spitting image of his bedridden …

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Proper endings like this feel right

Physician voices

A case for resident activism

In 2019, residents organized coast-to-coast to protest low pay, unsafe working conditions, and insufficient benefits. Residents at the University of Washington and UCLA walked out of the hospital in reaction to stalled contract negotiations. Residents at Yale interrupted a meeting…

In 2019, residents organized coast-to-coast to protest low pay, unsafe working conditions, and insufficient benefits. Residents at the University of Washington and UCLA walked out of the hospital in reaction to stalled contract negotiations. Residents at Yale interrupted a meeting to introduce a “Resident and Fellow Bill of Rights,” outlining basic rights such as …

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A case for resident activism

Physician voices

Is medicine a minefield of gender discrimination and abuse?

9

I am a 57-year-old female physician, and I remember an incident that involved a cardiologist on the other end of the phone, roughly fifteen years ago. I had recently started work as a hospitalist, and the cardiologist and I had…

I am a 57-year-old female physician, and I remember an incident that involved a cardiologist on the other end of the phone, roughly fifteen years ago. I had recently started work as a hospitalist, and the cardiologist and I had never met. He clearly didn’t pay attention to my introduction, because when he heard my female voice calling from one the hospital floors to tell him that the twenty-seven-year-old patient …

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Is medicine a minefield of gender discrimination and abuse?

Physician voices

Can empathy be taught, or is it innate?

In medical school, I was taught to sit down at eye-level when speaking to a patient, ask them how they'd prefer to be addressed, make sure to ask questions in an open-ended manner to allow patients to express themselves, and…

In medical school, I was taught to sit down at eye-level when speaking to a patient, ask them how they’d prefer to be addressed, make sure to ask questions in an open-ended manner to allow patients to express themselves, and interject with “that must be really difficult for you” or “I can only imagine how that makes you feel,” as a way to show empathy and foster better connection with …

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Can empathy be taught, or is it innate?

Patient voices

Medical error disclosure programs: Old habits die hard

A radical change is emerging from within our health care system: Rather than deny or defend medical errors, some hospitals are acknowledging them upfront. This enlightened response has been gaining ground since 2001 when the University of Michigan Hospital introduced…

A radical change is emerging from within our health care system: Rather than deny or defend medical errors, some hospitals are acknowledging them upfront. This enlightened response has been gaining ground since 2001 when the University of Michigan Hospital introduced one of the first medical error disclosure programs: the Michigan Model.

Hospitals that adopt the model also promise to explain why the error occurred, apologize, offer fair compensation, and learn from …

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Medical error disclosure programs: Old habits die hard

Physician voices

Start a hospitalist program with these 6 steps

Just to give you my background, I manage a large hospitalist program for a busy downtown community hospital that is part of a large health system consisting of a total of 29 acute care hospitals in the same geographical area.…

Just to give you my background, I manage a large hospitalist program for a busy downtown community hospital that is part of a large health system consisting of a total of 29 acute care hospitals in the same geographical area.

One of the reasons why our team was hired recently to manage this hospitalist program was to change the existing work culture, which had resulted in poor team performance, low physician …

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Start a hospitalist program with these 6 steps

Physician voices

System failure: We need a reboot to better handle intersectionality

4

In medical school, physicians learn how to diagnose and treat medical conditions. We learn about all the different presentations and revel in catching a complex or rare diagnosis. In essence, we learn to categorize disorders based on a cluster of…

In medical school, physicians learn how to diagnose and treat medical conditions. We learn about all the different presentations and revel in catching a complex or rare diagnosis. In essence, we learn to categorize disorders based on a cluster of symptoms and match them with appropriate treatment plans.

Of course, you want this quality in your physician. This system works well until you enter independent practice and learn quickly that patients …

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System failure: We need a reboot to better handle intersectionality

Health policy

When physician leaders get acquired and squeezed

As a child, when I first read The Little Prince and saw the picture of the boa constrictor swallowing an elephant, I would often ponder what it felt like to be the elephant. Later in seventh-grade science class, when I…

As a child, when I first read The Little Prince and saw the picture of the boa constrictor swallowing an elephant, I would often ponder what it felt like to be the elephant. Later in seventh-grade science class, when I learned of amoebae and how they surround and digest neighboring life forms for their sustenance, the same wonder followed. Enlightenment to what it feels like to be subsumed came to …

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When physician leaders get acquired and squeezed

Health technology

IT deficits are eating hospital profits. CEOs need to wake up.

I work for a hospital network with the world's slowest computers. I timed it: Last shift, it took me fifteen minutes to log on. The first computer obtained didn't function at all. It had been worked on the day before…

I work for a hospital network with the world’s slowest computers.  I timed it: Last shift, it took me fifteen minutes to log on. The first computer obtained didn’t function at all.  It had been worked on the day before by information technology services (IT).

Efficiency and time management appear to be amongst top priorities in medicine. “Did they get their aspirin 24 hours after getting their clot-busting drug after cleared …

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IT deficits are eating hospital profits. CEOs need to wake up.

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