Accepting a promotion in the workplace is never easy task. One must take on a higher level of responsibility, carry out new job objectives, and must quickly form new working relationships with colleagues at the office.
Taking on the role as a newly-branded doctor after years of being a medical student is no different in this aspect from becoming a junior partner ...
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One of the greatest risks I faced from surgery to repair a macular hole in my eye was from a hospital acquired infection. But when I tried to find data on the performance of various hospitals in New York City, there were no ratings for Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat where I would have my surgery. My doctor had moved from a prestigious New York City hospital to Manhattan Eye, ...
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The crowded emergency department (ED): It has become a symbol for our fragmented, inefficient health care system.
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the visual has become more familiar than we'd like - the young and the old slumped forward on rigid plastic chairs in the waiting room, occupied stretchers lined up in tandem in the hallway. Some of these patients are sick enough to warrant a hospital admission but languish ...
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Promoting patient safety, preventing medical error, preventing physician error, preventing errors in diagnosis, preventing nurse error, preventing surgical error, preventing communication error, preventing health illiteracy error, preventing errors from language barriers, preventing laboratory error, preventing computer error, preventing patient mix-ups, preventing right and left side of body mix-ups, preventing mistakes, since mistakes are the stepping stones to failure.
Recognizing human frailty, recognizing physician humanity, recognizing system fallibility, owning up to problems, ...
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She had only been in the hospital twice in her life: once when she was nine and now, 60 years later. She had gotten tonsils out then. She was getting tumors out now.
Her abdomen hurt when she was awake. Her abdomen would also hurt during exploratory surgery, although she wouldn’t be able to feel it under general anesthesia. Her body would feel it, though, and could respond by dangerously spiking ...
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The Dartmouth Atlas Project released a study on October 30, 2012, entitled, “What Kind of Physician Will You Be? Variation in Health Care and Its Importance for Residency Training.” The data, and the conclusions of the report’s authors, bear closer examination.
The data set focuses on the differences in the intensity of services that Medicare patients receive, and highlights the academic medical centers rated by U.S. News and World ...
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It was unfortunate – but not very surprising – to see the news recently that Groupon laid off a portion of their 10,000 employees. If ever there was a predictable bubble, it was daily deals.
But it was fun while it lasted, and you can see why there was so much overinvestment in the space. Groupon’s pitch to merchants was to ask them to take a loss by making a super compelling offer ...
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I believe that when people are in a crisis situation small things can become magnified; good and bad, and especially in the healthcare field. A perceived small rudeness may just be the tipping point that causes a patient to leave a practice or go to another hospital. On the other hand, a smile, a kind word or gesture can impact someone more than you will ever know and leave a ...
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“Value” is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that health care professionals everywhere are seeking, but which few can seem to find.
Policy makers, hospital executives, physicians, consultants – all are looking for a means to pivot away from a system that rewards volume of services provided to one that rewards quality and cost effectiveness (i.e., “value”).
How far we are from achieving this goal can be gauged ...
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The other night, a patient gave me a piece of his mind. Mr. Q was a middle-aged man debilitated by days of nausea, vomiting and intractable belly pain. That morning, his wife finally convinced him to get medical attention and drove him to our emergency department. On arrival, he sat in a cubicle in the waiting room and explained his story to a triage doctor: how he was doing well ...
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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