I almost fell off my chair. It was bad enough that he showed up to the ER. But what happened next really blew my mind. He fell and bruised a rib. The pain in his left chest had obvious enough origins. But triage had put in for an electrocardiogram and the interpretation apparently scared the resident. The attending took a look, and shook his head.
"Left bundle branch block. Better call ...
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It had all been so easy when Jim was still around. Lisa's ex-husband had many shortcomings, but being a critical care specialist sure came in handy. Any time her mom or dad had a health crisis, he was right there in the middle of it: advocating, interpreting, breaking down the complexities into easily digestible morsels of information. But then Lisa's father died, and the emotional and physical stress brought the unstable union ...
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The ICU hummed as the tech guy waltzed in at two in the morning. A key designer of the EMR himself, the night shift nurses had his mobile and were not afraid to use it. There was a problem reconciling Mr. Jones med list after his emergency bypass surgery that evening. Patients first.
The next one in the door was the young CEO ...
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We have to stop comparing ourselves to the airline industry.
Sitting on the lounge chair at the pool, I can't believe that just hours ago I was sludging the wintry streets of Chicago, rushing to the airport. The kids clucked away happily in the back seat as the adults in front where more subdued. As grownups do, we kept running through our mental checklists even though the ship had already sailed, we ...
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It happened, of all times, when I was in the car driving the kids to violin practice. My pager buzzed with a message from one of the medical floors. I waited till the car was parked, and dutifully pecked the numbers on my cell phone.
Hello doctor, we have your patient, can you please put admitting orders into EPIC?
I, of course, like most doctors, wasn't sitting by my phone waiting at a computer terminal. ...
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I could see through the two window shields into her car. Her forehead creased into a petulant frown and she mouthed the words over dramatically.
Asshole!
Five minutes earlier, I was packing up my papers at the nursing home when my pager went off. I fumbled for the desk phone, my arms constrained by the bulky winter jacket I had just climbed into. I tapped my feet and waited impatiently for someone to pick up ...
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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity.
The woman lying on the gurney was motionless. Her chest moved up and down with a timid but halting regularity. The calmness of her face was in sharp contrast to the panicked despair of the ...
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I have come to terms with making difficult decisions. I accept the possibility of committing a mistake that will cost a life. But I never signed on to bankrupting my patients. Never!
I had been up all night tossing and turning. The stat CT scan was deemed unnecessary by the insurance company. My patient called crying saying he couldn't afford the thousands of dollars in charges. Never ...
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I have nothing against the patient empowerment movement. In fact, I think an informed and collaborative partnership is mutually beneficial. But I can't help but laugh when I read some of these tweets.
Death to paternalistic medicine!
The age of paternalistic medicine is over!
True, the era of doctor knows best is long gone. But it's a mistake to think think today's health care consumer has any more leverage than before. It just seems ...
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The dictates of human kindness are fickle.
The eruption of papers fluttered to the linoleum floor of the bustling hospital corridor. Important persons with grey pressed coats and stethoscopes bouncing against clavicles rushed by without rotating necks downwards to notice. Loosely fitting scrubs clung to contracting muscles, and pudgy abdomens directed bodies hurriedly around the corner with a misplaced sense of purpose.
And the poor woman bent down helplessly, and struggled to collate ...
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"A comprehensive and extremely useful roadmap for doctors."
-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
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Past 6 Months
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