I spoke with a young pediatrician recently who complained about her late hours in the office. A lot of calling patients with questions about labs. On cursory review, she seems to do a lot of medical tests. It makes sense. Here’s the math: Two sessions per day of 10-12 children per session and everyone gets a comprehensive metabolic panel (as an example). 48 hours ... Continue Reading about Medical Tests – The More You Order, the More You Explain
Medicine is a Profession of Response
Medicine is a profession of response. Physicians exist to respond to things. All day long my clinical work is sequence of responses to all kinds of things. Symptoms, signs, concerns, reactions, questions, findings on diagnostic studies. When my Epic inbox is empty I go home. There’s nothing to do. If things stop happening to children that need my response I’ll be ... Continue Reading about Medicine is a Profession of Response
Doctors, Joy and Background Work
If you don't like the most basic problems faced by a specialty, you risk being miserable as a physician. Those who can't handle the background work end up in administration or taking an exit for something else. More important than the ability to embrace a specialty’s most basic problems is the ability to find joy in the process. For me, joy comes from engagement ... Continue Reading about Doctors, Joy and Background Work
The Danger of What Doctors Were Trained to Do
I hear this a lot from young and mid-career physicians in the face of new information, “But I was trained to...” 'I was trained’ suggests knowledge and standards are static. The way things were done is the way things are done. It fuels the myth that our mentors could do no wrong and they knew everything. 'I was trained’ is a dangerous way to think. It closes us ... Continue Reading about The Danger of What Doctors Were Trained to Do
Doximity Dialer Now Part of the Doximity App
33c is thrilled to have Doximity as a sponsor this week. The ideas below, however, are shaped and written on my own. You might not have noticed it, but last week Doximity Dialer was rolled into the Doximity app making it part of the growing set of Doximity offerings for health care professionals (For a summary of what Doximity is up to, see my post last month when ... Continue Reading about Doximity Dialer Now Part of the Doximity App
JotForm – A HIPAA-compliant Solution to One of Healthcare’s Biggest Workflow Problems
33c is thrilled to have JotForm as a sponsor this week. The ideas below are shaped and written on my own. So it’s a recurrent theme in clinics everywhere. The patient shows for their appointment on time. They sit filling out forms. The doctor waits for the forms to be filled out. If the patient is accessing two different clinics in a facility, they may fill out the ... Continue Reading about JotForm – A HIPAA-compliant Solution to One of Healthcare’s Biggest Workflow Problems