A young lady comes to the emergency department and wants to be evaluated for a somewhat non-urgent problem.
Chief complaint: “I’ve lost 50 lbs in the past month.”
She felt a little weak as well, but she had just lost too much weight. No other symptoms.
The patient weighed 132 pounds. Her skin wasn’t sagging. Her jeans didn’t appear to be new and they seemed to fit pretty well. Nothing about her seemed ...
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When you work in an urban hospital, sometimes it’s difficult not to become jaded.
There are certain neighborhoods that generate a disproportionate number of patients for some emergency departments. Meth is rampant. Marriage pretty much nonexistent. More bars than there are restaurants. Domestic abuse frequent, but prosecutions rare. Police know people more by their street names than by their real names.
South Heights was one of those neighborhoods.
The emergency department frequently treats ...
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I happened to read an article in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch where Ohio coroners are complaining because some doctors, including emergency physicians, are refusing to sign death certificates listing a patient’s cause of death. The coroners are concerned because they are being “burdened” with hundreds of extra cases every year that they must handle. And if other doctors don’t sign off on the cause of death, sometimes it ...
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California doesn’t have enough doctors to provide healthcare to newly insured patients.
California state senator Ed Hernandez asks, "What good is it if they [state citizens] are going to have a health insurance card but no access to doctors?"
Wait. Health care insurance doesn’t mean that patients will have access to health care? Where have I heard that being said for more than 3 years?
The government is ...
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An article written by two physicians in Time questions whether we should blame doctors for the large number of chronic pain patients and the abuse of prescription pain medications.
There are two frames of reference to this article.
First, no one can argue that prescriptions for pain medications in this country are excessive. The article notes that in 2011, "enough hydrocodone was ...
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He used to be a boxer.
Those days were long-gone, though.
Now he was a shell of his former self.
The hands that formerly knocked opponents to the mat were now contracted and full of arthritis. Dementia had taken away his ability to tell the stories about his career. Metastatic lung cancer ravaged his body. Multiple bed sores ate away at his sacrum and ...
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I work at several hospitals and each uses a different electronic medical record system. When I switch from hospital one to another, I obviously have my favorite EMR systems and my not so favorite EMR systems. In the previous post, I was using the EMPOWER charting system, which I liked for its simplicity, but disliked because of the layouts of the charting interface and some of the macros ...
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Emergency Physicians Monthly has an important debate between ACEP President David Seaberg and EP Monthly founder Mark Plaster about the “Choosing Wisely” program.
Choosing Wisely is being pushed by the ABIM Foundation as a way to get specialty societies to label certain tests as “unnecessary” or of questionable benefit.
I side with Dr. Seaberg in this argument.
I disagree with the concept some people advance that we ...
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Whether you’re starting medical school or beginning your second year, this post is for you. Will probably work just as well for PAs, NPs and any other health professional student who hasn’t started clinical rotations.
Our former babysitter just graduated from medical school and the WhiteCoats are just as proud as her parents are. Then I started thinking, what advice would I give to students starting medical school?
Our first day of ...
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The FDA is deciding whether to allow patients to purchase prescription medications over the counter for many common ailments.
This idea is controversial.
On one hand, deregulation would remove one of the largest barriers to receiving treatment for some conditions – the doctor’s visit. If no doctor’s visit is necessary to receive necessary blood pressure medications or diabetes medications, then patients don’t have to wait for an appointment and the patient/government ...
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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
Dear lawmakers: This is what it’s like to be a doctor today
Matthew Moeller, MD | PhysicianA gun owner responds to Sandy Hook
Edwin Leap, MD | PhysicianIs Chris Christie too obese to run for president?
Jeffrey Parks, MD | PhysicianIf I’m wrong about guns, can you please explain why?
Claire McCarthy, MD | PhysicianPrimary care doctors may no longer be needed
Doug Olson, MD | PhysicianWalgreens moves into primary care, and it’s our own damn fault
Kevin Pho, MD | Kevin's Take