The AMA asks if we can create doctors better equipped to deal with the EHR. The question lit up Twitter and its growing numbers of health professionals. But this is the wrong question. Framing the question becomes important when you consider how we have related to our tools as a profession. Technology has traditionally served to extend the hand of the ... Continue Reading about Industry Applies – Man Conforms
Is Self-care the Answer to Physician Burnout?
Among physicians, self-care is booming. This week on Twitter I pick this up from Esko Kilpi, Helsinki-based management guru: Our moral structures have been based on individualism emphasizing self-fulfillment, self-actualization and “fixing yourself.” What we would really need is a relational mindset emphasizing interdependence and ... Continue Reading about Is Self-care the Answer to Physician Burnout?
Butterfly iQ Moments – Should Med Students Have a POCUS?
During its revered white coat ceremony last week The University of California Irvine School of Medicine gave Butterfly iQ pocket ultrasound devices to its medical students. The future, it seems, belongs to POCUS (point of care ultrasound). Twitter lit up. Social sentiment pinned the Butterfly iQ as the new stethoscope. Every armchair futurist was over the ... Continue Reading about Butterfly iQ Moments – Should Med Students Have a POCUS?
Potty Mouth Doctors and the Emerging Value of Outrage
It’s interesting how the use of social media by physicians has changed as it relates to risk and professionalism. In the earliest days doctors either didn’t use social media or they mitigated risk through anonymous profiles. Even now, the core goal for many physicians dipping their toes in the public conversation is to first avoid getting in trouble. The rise of ... Continue Reading about Potty Mouth Doctors and the Emerging Value of Outrage
The Physician and the Health Docent
Last week STAT First Opinion carried the story of a young woman who learned of her BRCA1 (mutation predisposing to breast cancer) mutation on a 23andMe report. She describes the experience of processing that explosive bit of information in the isolation of her own mind and information network. Contrasting this experience with the confirmation of her status with a ... Continue Reading about The Physician and the Health Docent
Non-Place in Health Care
Amber Case got me thinking with this brief essay on the non-place. Briefly defined, non-places are urban or industrial spaces where personhood is put on pause. And they’re everywhere, from airports, highways and chain supermarkets, to narrow, suffocating, condo-filled streets — the in-between spaces where people are without relation or history. In a ... Continue Reading about Non-Place in Health Care