Early last year, my boss Talmadge King and I were at an ABIM meeting (we’re both on the board), and the group was debating a controversial topic. Another participant at the meeting, like Talmadge the chair of a prominent department of medicine, said, “We polled 250 people at our grand rounds last week, and they said ‘X’.” The audience gasped – ‘X’ was a completely unexpected …
The following is part of a series of original guest columns by the American College of Physicians.
by Steven Weinberger, MD, FACP
At times of calendar transitions, e.g., at the onset of a new year or a new decade, the popular press often takes a broad view in looking retrospectively at the outstanding or defining events and people of the past …
A common complaint is that doctors these days are spending more time doing clerical tasks.
Examples include filling out pre-authorization forms, talking to health plans for pre-certifications on imaging studies, and spending time jumping through bureaucratic hoops. Generally, you do not need a medical degree to do these tasks.
Bob Doherty points to a study that gives some numbers to back up the claims. Primary care doctors spend about 3.5 …
Would Natasha Richardson be alive today if she had gone skiing in the United States instead?
I don’t think it would have made a difference.
To recap the tragedy, Ms. Richardson died from an epidural bleed, after she fell while skiing. Her presentation was somewhat classic, with the well-described “lucid” period before she deteriorated.
According to Canada’s Globe and Mail, “ambulance workers were not …
For those who don’t know, every piece of work that a doctor performs is quantified and measured.
The base unit of physician work is known as the relative value unit (RVU). Most physician salaries are determined by the amount of RVUs a doctor produces in a given year, and in most cases, can range between$35 and $45 per RVU in primary care, depending on geographic location and …
Doctors in training often do so in their prime family-rearing years.
A few pediatric residencies are offering part-time residency options, designed for those who also want to raise their own families. Proponents argue that residents can not only get more rest, but also avoid depression, which affected almost a quarter of pediatrics residents.
Combined with the talk of further limiting work hours down to 56 …
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