• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

33 Charts

  • About
    • What is 33 Charts?
    • Bryan Vartabedian MD
  • Blog
  • 33mail
  • Foci
    • Social/Public Media
    • Physicians
    • Patients
    • Hospitals
    • Information
    • Process/Flow
    • Technology
    • Digital culture
    • Future Medicine
  • The Public Physician
Physicians, Process/Flow

Medicine is a Profession of Response

August 3, 2018 By Bryan Vartabedian · Reading Time: < 1 minutes

responseMedicine 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 input I’ll be out of business.

Emergency rooms are great big response spaces. No one goes to the emergency room when everything’s fine. They go when something’s happening. When something’s emergent.

Believing that physicians are here for anything other than to respond is fantasy.

In a perfect world physicians would exist to prevent response from ever being necessary. The day is coming when we will prevent, predict and preempt.

But it’s not a perfect world, yet. And for now we just respond.

(Oh and when I’m not responding I try to create.)

Image via flickr

Related Articles

  • Lockstep Medicine - Marching in Time with the Past
  • Weekend Medicine
  • Rejuvenile Physicians

Tagged With: Big Thinking

Related Articles

  • Lockstep Medicine - Marching in Time with the Past
  • Weekend Medicine
  • Rejuvenile Physicians

Primary Sidebar

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Bryan Vartabedian, MD
Bryan Vartabedian is the Chief Pediatrics Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital North Austin and one of health care’s influential
voices on technology & medicine.
Learn More

Popular Articles

  • The Fate of Fired Cleveland Clinic Resident Lara Kollab
  • Cures Act Final Rule – How It Will Change Medicine
  • 12 Things About Doximity You Probably Didn’t Know
  • Should Physicians Give Their Cell Phone Number to Patients?
  • Doximity Dialer Video – Telemedicine’s Latest Power Player

Sign up for 33mail newsletter

Featured Articles

Yes, Doctor

100,000 Connected Lemmings

Context Collapse and the Public Physician

Doctors and the Endemic Culture of Permission

Will the Future Need Doctors?

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Footer

What is 33 Charts?

With a mashup of curated and original content that crosses the spaces of digital health, media, communication, technology, patient experience, digital culture, and the humanities, 33 charts offers unique insight and analysis on the changing face of medicine.

Founded in 2009 as a center of community and thought leadership for the issues doctors face in a digital world, 33 charts was included in the National Library of Medicine permanent web archive in 2014.
Learn More

Foci

  • Digital culture
  • Digital Health
  • EHR/Health IT
  • Future Medicine
  • Hospitals
  • Information
  • Patients
  • Physicians
  • Process/Flow
  • Quality
  • Social/Public Media
  • Technology

Copyright © 2023 · 33 Charts · Privacy Policy