Hospital stays can be traumatic for patients and their family members. I give you the top 10 ways to survive a hospital stay while maintaining your sanity.10. Bring your own pillow. Trust me.9. Bring a laptop computer or request one from the hospital. Hospitals all have free wireless these days and many will actually provide you with a laptop if you just ask.8. Bring an accurate and updated medication list ...
Posts tagged Hospitalist
How patients can remember their doctor’s name
“Do you remember my name?”Like a broken record, I repeat this question again and again as I make rounds in the hospital. My patients’ universal answer, given with furled eyebrows and an apologetic look is “uh, no, I don’t remember”.My response: “Don’t worry. It’s Dr. Tony Breu, but call me Tony.” Theirs’ (again with furled brow, but also a smile): “Oh, okay.”In a busy teaching hospital, it is not uncommon ...
ACP: Making transitions better for patients
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com.Many patients see multiple doctors and receive care in a variety of settings. Some patients receive care in more than one hospital. As an internist who is in the process of transforming into a patient-centered medical home, I have been taking steps to help my patients when they ...
Young doctors don’t see value in primary care careers
In my new role as one of the directors of an internal medicine training program, I help select new interns out of medical school for the three year training stint of residency.At the end of residency, many graduates go on to subspecialty fellowships, another two to four year period of intensive training in fields like cardiology, nephrology, critical care etc.For those that don’t choose a subspecialty, one choice remains: traditional ...
The problem with round the clock hospitalist coverage
Two recent articles, one from the New York Times, the other from The Hospitalist, initiated some 24/7 staffing issue rumination on my behalf. It stems originally from a recent op-ed by Lucian Leape: "Given the accrediting council’s reluctance to act, the federal government needs to get tougher. If we are serious about curbing the tide of injuries stemming from medical errors, Medicare should make its funding of graduate ...
How medical students can prepare to be hospitalists
A second year medical student reader asked me to comment on what rotations to take in medical school to prepare for an internal medicine or hospitalist medicine career.
I am a second year medical student, very interested it practicing the art of Hospital Medicine, and I was wondering if you had any advice/comments on any specific electives to consider to help prepare me for an Internal Medicine residency.Great question. As ...
An opportunity for hospitalists to improve patient care
Some hospitalists are in denial. Some hospitalists have become methodologic critics. But all hospitalists should take the findings of the recent Annals of Internal Medicine article seriously. We should not argue about the article, but rather ask whether these findings point out a weak point in our care of patients.This article provides an opportunity, not a scolding:
In an accompanying editorial, two other researchers from the VA Medical Center ...
Call Day from ZDoggMD
What's it like to be on call? Hospitalist ZDoggMD knows.
Hospitalist care is more expensive but don’t blame hospitalists
Hospitalists save money. Until the patient leaves the hospital, at least.A recent study from the Annals of Internal Medicine ignited debate over the cost effectiveness of hospitalists. Looking at Medicare patients from 2001 to 2006, researchers found that "those who were followed by a primary care physician spent about half a day more at the hospital, costing ...
Hospitalists should limit the number of patients they see
I was talking to a fellow physician and he inquired, "how many patients do you see in a day?" I said, "maybe around 20."He smirked and replied, "20 only! I can see around 40 in a day and still have time to hit some balls." There is something fishy here at Smallville.A few years ago I used to work for this company. I had no option but to see a ...
Our future health depends on the success of hospital medicine
Over the past few years I have talked with many hospitalists. I know many hospitalist leaders and have many hard working hospitalists.Most classic general internists have viewed the hospitalist movement with skepticism. Many outpatient internists express jealousy over the salaries and work hours of most hospitalists.But here is what most non-hospitalists do not understand. In most hospitals in this country hospitalists ...
Social workers can reduce preventable readmissions
I just finished another 2 weeks on service. This time, I had also had a shadower, but one of a different kind. As part of our Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Open School, we are making an effort to have collaborative learning opportunities for our medicine and health administration program students. Achieving true interprofessional learning is challenging for schools like ours without a pharmacy ...
Should a hospitalist be given more information on hospital costs?
In Today’s Hospitalist, Jeremy Graham, DO discusses implications of research he’s published about hospitalists and costs: How much is that bed on the ward? Hospitalists are clueless about patient charges.Not surprisingly, hospitalists, like almost everyone in the hospital, have no idea what anything costs.That’s no real shock, as Graham points out:
It’s often hard for hospitalists to know these charges, ...
Specialty hospitalists joining forces with the generalist hospitalists
I recall with fondness many meetings in 1996-98, when the hospitalist field was still in its infancy. We had invented a new medical specialty, and our gatherings were vibrant and purposeful.We were determined to remake the healthcare system, learn from each other’s triumphs and disasters, and chart a course that would improve the care of hospitalized patients. These ...
Teamwork helps doctors with patient safety
One of the central tenets of the patient safety movement is that modern medicine is a team sport. Unfortunately, its players – particularly physicians – were trained and socialized to be free-spirited individualists. We need the Celtics of the 80s; what we have is a collection of young John McEnroes.
While this theory has been generally accepted, there is less agreement regarding how to change things. When I speak about
ZDoggMD: Hard Doc’s Life (Hospitalist Anthem)
Hospitalist, comedian and rapper ZDoggMD recently released his latest, Hard Doc’s Life (Hospitalist Anthem). Enjoy.
Hospitals should not ban access to social media
"Instead of focusing on treating him, an employee said, St. Mary nurses and other hospital staff did the unthinkable: They snapped photos of the dying man and posted them on Facebook."What can you say about an article like this? I bet there is not a single physician or nurse who are not reasonably conversant about the basic tenets of the health care privacy laws under which they practice.Stupid is as ...
Using a white board as a patient tool
There is a white board in every patient's room. This is used to keep patient oriented and provide them with basic information. You would see some data on it, most of the time there is a date scrolled on it, name of the nurse and maybe physician’s name.I recently read an article "Getting the most out the humble white board" by Deborrah Gesenway. This is an excellent read ...
Hospitalist: Long hospital stays are often due to poor planning
Being a hospitalist, I often see patients sitting in the hospital for days at length for no reason other than poor planning.Sometimes I feel that physicians who are involved in patient care are oblivious of each other. Everyone is in their own domain rather than working as a team. An increased length of stay in the hospital not only increases the cost of health care but also adds to the ...
Reducing hospital re-admissions and bouncebacks isn’t easy
In their most recent piece at Slate, emergency physicians Zachary F. Meisel and Jesse M. Pines tackle the issue of bouncebacks. That is, the re-admission of recently discharged hospitalized patients.They bring up good some good points, and point out that, until recently, hospitals really didn't have any incentive to reduce bouncebacks:
... hospitals have never had a compelling reason to try to prevent bouncebacks. Hospitals are typically paid a flat sum ...
