“Those people… the problems of this country start with those people. Send ’em all away is what I say! Round ’em up and get ’em outta here!” Her face was scrunched up, cheeks aflame, and she was practically spitting. My patient’s demeanor had transformed from …
I’ve started several posts in the last week, but every time, something more important happened that I wanted to write about, so nothing got finished. There’s been a lot going on in clinic, and at home. Clinic has been both scattershot and intense, a wildly …
The doctor-patient relationship is emphasized and idolized throughout medical training. Students and residents study and even dream about how they will interview, examine, and relate to their very own patients, when they are attendings. They do not worry about paperwork. But every physician deals with loads of paperwork …
It’s always awkward when a patient of mine who is hospitalized somewhere else calls me to complain about their care there. I’m obligated, of course, to check into the situation. But, I don’t have power or jurisdiction “somewhere else”. So recently, when a patient’s family …
We seem to be stuck in an endless cycle of GI bug and/or upper respiratory illness and/or medical crisis of some kind or another. Every night this week has had major disruptions with one or more of us hacking, or puking, or both. And …
Our entire massive hospital system is switching over to a new electronic medical record (EMR). From the outside, this doesn’t sound at all monumental, or even complicated. But for us, it’s pretty huge. Up until now, we’ve been using five or six (or more) different …
Yesterday, Wednesday, was supposed to be a short, easy workday, just a morning teaching session at the medical school, observing students role-playing taking a sexual history. No finding inpatients to interview, no running around the hospital, no taking notes for meaningful feedback, and no checking in …
I’ve started writing several posts this week, only to get pulled away by one thing or the other. By the time I’ve been able to get back to the draft, my thought and attention has already turned to another topic. I’ve now got very brief …
What’s the difference between sympathy and empathy? Example in action*: I was on call. I got that page, that very typical page: Patient running out of pain meds needs immediate refill please call. Ugh. More often than not, the phone call that follows this page …
What a clinically heavy week it’s been. There were two sudden and unexpected deaths… After the shock, the first things I thought of as the primary care doctor in both cases were: What did I do wrong? Did something I did or didn’t do contribute to …