Hospital medicine

5,188 articles · Since 2004

Articles, page 86

Why it’s time for doctors to ditch their white coats

January 5, 2016Jan 5, 201615

Would my white lab coat be better put to use when I carve the Christmas roast than when seeing patients? After all, we know that these coats can be covered with pathogens, including drug-resistant ones, which may be transmitted to…

Would my white lab coat be better put to use when I carve the Christmas roast than when seeing patients?

After all, we know that these coats can be covered with pathogens, including drug-resistant ones, which may be transmitted to patients. They are cleaned infrequently: In a survey of physicians, nearly 58 percent said they laundered their white coats monthly or never. Less than 3 percent washed them daily …

Physician voices

6 tips to be a great physician leader

Edward R. Mariano, MD

December 27, 2015Dec 27, 20152

I was recently invited to visit an academic anesthesiology department to speak to the residents about becoming a leader. In addition to recognizing the honor and privilege of addressing this important topic with the next generation of physician anesthesiologists, I…

I came up with the following list of lessons that I’ve learned …

Read more…

6 tips to be a great physician leader

Medical education

A vow to live a little more and worry a little less

Fatima Fahs

December 27, 2015Dec 27, 2015

Her nails were painted. She probably had them done just a couple of days ago. The bright red polish glistened on her perfectly filed fingernails. She had her toes done too. Was she preparing for the holiday season? Had she…

Her nails were painted.

She probably had them done just a couple of days ago. The bright red polish glistened on her perfectly filed fingernails. She had her toes done too.

Was she preparing for the holiday season? Had she begun her Christmas shopping yet? Was she making a list of new year’s resolutions?

It didn’t matter anymore.

She was lying there. The cold metal table provided the platform for her lifeless, still body. …

Real physician voices, twice a week

Free, and one click to unsubscribe.

Physician voices

The guilt and shame heaped on part-time physicians must stop

Ashley Maltz, MD, MPH

December 20, 2015Dec 20, 201578

Dear Fizzy, MD: Your article on part-time physicians “ruining” medicine really struck a chord with me. That you, as a mother and a wife, chose to prioritize your wholeness and family above career is commendable. I applaud your courage to…

Dear Fizzy, MD:

Your article on part-time physicians “ruining” medicine really struck a chord with me. That you, as a mother and a wife, chose to prioritize your wholeness and family above career is commendable. I applaud your courage to chart your own course in the face of a work culture that undermines your wellbeing while at the same time, expects you to deliver health and healing to others …

Health policy

The corporate practice of medicine is overwhelming American health care

Gene Uzawa Dorio, MD

December 19, 2015Dec 19, 201526

Two decades ago, I admitted a patient to the intensive care unit for a heart attack. His children were grown, and he looked forward to retirement purchasing an RV to relax and travel the country with his wife. Invasive cardiac…

Invasive cardiac technology had not evolved, so he remained in the ICU on intravenous medication to control his symptoms. On the fifth hospital day, his wife brought a letter from the insurance company …

Physician voices

How to change from a divisive to a collaborative medical staff

John H. Schneider, MD

December 19, 2015Dec 19, 2015

Physician cure thyself. After 30 years of participation in multiple medical staffs, including small regional hospitals and large academic settings, there is one constant that continually undermines how content physicians are with their medical practice and the health care system.…

Physician cure thyself.

After 30 years of participation in multiple medical staffs, including small regional hospitals and large academic settings, there is one constant that continually undermines how content physicians are with their medical practice and the health care system. Many challenges in patient care seem insurmountable. From declining reimbursements to intensified quagmire of bureaucracy, the practicing physician, whether employed or not is berated by administrative authorities with no experience in …

Drugs and prescribing

Hospitalization for patients with alcohol use disorder: A teachable moment

Jeffrey Hom, MD, MPH, MSHP & Shilpa Shah, MD

December 18, 2015Dec 18, 20152

"Help me stop doing this." Mr. G was a 55-year-old homeless man who uttered these words to us during his fifth hospitalization for problems related to his alcohol use: intoxication, falls, and alcohol withdrawal. He was on a downward spiral…

“Help me stop doing this.”

Mr. G was a 55-year-old homeless man who uttered these words to us during his fifth hospitalization for problems related to his alcohol use: intoxication, falls, and alcohol withdrawal. He was on a downward spiral through the hospital’s revolving door and felt helpless. As a medical team, we felt helpless too. We did not know how to address his real problem—his cycle of addiction.

Hospitalized patients like …

Physician voices

Hospitals and doctors should better prepare for winter. Here’s how.

Suneel Dhand, MD

December 16, 2015Dec 16, 2015

With the depths of winter just around the corner, doctors and nurses everywhere know what’s about to hit them over the next few months. The inevitable surge in hospital admissions during colder weather is almost as predictable as knowing the…

As someone who has worked in several different hospitals over the last few years, ranging from small rural institutions to large …

Physician voices

The demise of the hospital discharge summary

Richard Plotzker, MD

December 12, 2015Dec 12, 20155

There was a time within my professional lifetime when old records would arrive on the medical ward in a wheeled wire basket, multiple volumes with shabby pages. And in the VA of the 1980s, which still had veterans of World War I who never lived anywhere else the previous half century, the forklift could deliver not only the charts but the x-ray films that had not yet been sent to …

Physician voices

Incident reports aren’t very helpful. Why are they still being filed in hospitals?

Skeptical Scalpel, MD

December 10, 2015Dec 10, 20157

Incident reports are frequently submitted by hospital personnel. Did you ever wonder what happens to them? I have. Over the years, I estimate that I’ve heard of hundreds of such reports being filed, but rarely have I heard of a…

Incident reports are frequently submitted by hospital personnel. Did you ever wonder what happens to them? I have.

Over the years, I estimate that I’ve heard of hundreds of such reports being filed, but rarely have I heard of a problem being solved or for that matter, any action being taken at all.

In fact, I don’t even know where they went or who dealt with them. When I was a department …

Health policy

Change happens best when it’s done with clinicians and not to them

Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD

December 8, 2015Dec 8, 2015

Like a pro golfer swears by a certain brand of clubs or a marathon runner has a chosen make of shoes, surgeons can form strong loyalties to the tools of their craft. Preferences for these items — such as artificial hips and knees, surgical screws, stents, pacemakers and other implants — develop over time, perhaps out of habit or acquired during their training.

Of course, surgeons should have what they need to …

Health policy

Reducing hospital readmissions: The burden shouldn’t be all on the doctors

Suneel Dhand, MD

December 8, 2015Dec 8, 201517

Readmissions to hospital, especially within 30 days of discharge, are on the radar of all health care organizations in the United States. This is due in no small part to stiff financial penalties that are now imposed on the worst…

On the surface, it may seem like a reasonable thing to penalize hospitals that don’t successfully “get their patients better enough” to avoid readmission. However, the …

Physician voices

You have a dysfunctional hospitalist group. Can it be fixed?

Tracy Cardin, ACNP

December 3, 2015Dec 3, 201516

I was talking with a colleague in another section today, and she was noting the difference between our hospitalist group and her section. She has somewhat intimate knowledge of our section because she did a year with us before moving on to her specialty fellowship. She is a bit frustrated with her new home and its team members because she feels like there are a lot of “B’s.” You know …

Conditions and diseases

When will we start taking mental health seriously?

Marc N. Katz, MD

November 25, 2015Nov 25, 20156

As a fourth-year medical student in a sub-internship in internal medicine, I have something that no doctor in America has. I have as much time as I want to spend with my patients. Don’t get me wrong, I am still a student. I’m still paying hospitals to let me be there, and I only have a maximum of four patients per day, but I inevitably end up spending more time …

Health policy

Health care networks: A mistake we will pay for

Paul Levy

November 22, 2015Nov 22, 20158

Recently, I have discussed networks (Internet and electricity), but I would be remiss if I didn’t spend a few moments on the networks that are most likely to rob us of personal choice and increase costs: Health care networks. Wait,…

Wait, didn’t President Obama promise us that the new health care law would preserve choice for us? Didn’t he promise us lower costs? Well, in spite of much good …

Physician voices

The problem with VIPs in the hospital

Joyce Park, MD

November 15, 2015Nov 15, 20158

Recently, one of my best friends from medical school, Dr. Shoa Clarke published an op-ed in the New York Times titled, “How Hospitals Coddle the Rich.” In the article he describes how many hospitals throughout the country offer VIP services to the wealthy and how that may be detrimental to other patients not offered the same courtesy but also the VIP patients themselves. It’s a thought-provoking article that makes …

Read more…

The problem with VIPs in the hospital

Physician voices

Why medical scribes are the ultimate answer to our health IT woes

Suneel Dhand, MD

November 14, 2015Nov 14, 2015120

Statistics suggest that physicians are now spending a minimal amount of time in direct patient care, shockingly as little as 10 percent of their day. This proportion of time that physicians (and nurses) actually spend interacting with patients has been…

There’s the need to communicate with other members of the expanding health care team, increased bureaucratic requirements, and over the last several years — the need to …

Health technology

This is what it’s like to practice 14 hours of medicine without computers

Heather E. Gantzer, MD

November 13, 2015Nov 13, 20156

“It’s going to be ugly today” was my colleague’s assessment at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, when the electronic medical record failed to launch, the Internet could not be accessed, pagers and phones could not connect, and a recording on the helpdesk line noted, “Systems are down, and there is currently no estimated time of resolution.” So we waded into fourteen hours of practicing medicine without computers.

This was not good. Patients’ …

Health technology

Health IT: Damaging patient satisfaction one click at a time

Suneel Dhand, MD

November 11, 2015Nov 11, 201515

The use of information technology in health care holds so much promise, and potential yet to be realized. Ask any front line physician and they will list electronic medical records (EMRs) as one of their biggest daily frustrations. A brilliant video by Zubin Damania, also known as ZDoggMD, recently parodied the current situation and the pain felt by doctors on a daily basis.

But it really isn’t all about …

Physician voices

The patient experience: 4 observations from a physician

Thomas D. Guastavino, MD

November 8, 2015Nov 8, 201589

Last year, I retired from full-time practice and moved to a new area. At about the same time, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and because she was in good health prior, she had relatively little contact with the…

Before our move she worked as a part-time school nurse, so we were able to share provider horror stories from different perspectives. Since we moved …

Hospital medicine

Articles, page 86

Real physician voices, twice a week

The Podcast

Latest episodes

Most popular

The Podcast

Latest episodes

Most popular