Fred N. Pelzman, MD

As we've seen, the lives of those working in the health care system has become overwhelmingly challenging, burdened by all of the excess nonmedical stuff that has been added into our lives as we try to take care of patients. From prior authorizations, to clicking in the electronic medical record, to endless streams of regulatory requirements, to the continuous onslaught created by ...

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It's always kind of a surprise when you read a patient's chart, and you see an examination of a body part they just don't have. Just the other day, I was reading a consult note on a patient of mine who had been seen by a subspecialist for evaluation of a serious issue, and I received back a long detailed office ...

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I just did my first telemedicine video visit. The concept seems so strange, the idea of carrying out an "office visit" without the patient actually being in the office. Right now we have it structured so that when a patient calls up requesting to see me on a day when I am already fully booked (or, as is usually the case, overbooked), ...

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Every year, there's this rite of passage, the passing of the baton, as our graduating senior residents move on to fellowships, or into spots as hospitalists, or to practice jobs here in New York City or other cities, and a fresh new group of newly-minted physicians arrives ready to take up the gauntlet of training as Internal Medicine doctors under our ...

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So, who doesn't want a better health care system? We are barraged with stories in the medical literature and in the public press about the terrible state of our health care system, what poor outcomes we have, the inefficiencies in care, complaints about the electronic medical record, inflated costs, lives ruined by medical bankruptcy, and massive social inequities in terms of access ...

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Falling through the cracks, when it comes to health care, is a bad thing, but the way things are going, it's getting harder and harder to avoid. Providers in every setting are bombarded on all sides with data, results, messages, and things crying out -- screaming -- for our attention. Take, for instance, the conundrum that appears when a patient is ...

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Yesterday, I got just about the strangest version of "MD aware" I have ever had. We all know what this is, the person who is relaying some critical clinical information (positive blood cultures, Mr. Smith in Room 402 is having chest pain, etc.), and then they ask for your name so they can write it down somewhere in the chart. In this case, ...

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From the sublime to the ridiculous. That's sort of how my day went yesterday. It started out with an early morning meeting with a colleague who has been implementing a telehealth program at one of our institution's practices, learning about how they have been using this technology, some of the bumps in the road they'd hit, and how they'd been able to ...

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Yesterday, I went into an exam room to print out some orders for a patient who needed to get his labs done at an outside facility. Due to his insurance, he cannot get his labs drawn in our office during a scheduled appointment, but must do it at one of the laboratories that his insurer has contracted with. Not a terribly big ...

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