CYA is one of the most dangerous acronyms found in a hospital. It’s not in my vocabulary.

I don’t copy everyone in my organization on email responses. My notes lack pages of boilerplate language. I responsibly cover what I do without the assumption that something sinister is on the horizon from my patients or peers.

And ugly things have happened. I’ve been reviewed and sued and criticized. But those looking for a piece of me haven’t been deterred by my best paper trail. My problems have come from failure to do the right thing.

CYA is window dressing for the nervous. It affords a false sense that with the right process everything will be okay. Kind of like a doctor’s Twitter disclaimer. But what covers me is when I do my best to do the right thing. And when I do that nothing needs covering.

Of course we need to be smart, but we need to recognize that we’re striving for something bigger than window dressing.