“I didn’t understand what you said,” said the waitress. “She very clearly said she wanted a quesadilla with a side of beans!” yelled an elderly gentleman at a different table. The nervousness that arose when ordering food …
Category: Hospital-Based Medicine
A physician experiences unprofessional behavior. What happened next? [PODCAST]
“Setting: An impersonal, windowless conference room within a hospital Characters: A nurse in charge (NIC), a department chair (DC) and me (ME) NIC: Thank you for joining us to discuss the report you made of unprofessional behavior in the operatin…
Hospital administrators thinking about no-cost treatment which really helps patients
The following article is satire. According to several very old studies, interventional patient-centered bipedal locomotion (sometimes informally referred to as walking) might be an important part of good hospital care. Programs focusing on this treatme…
Why we’ll never eradicate malignancy in medical training
For a bunch of folks striving to stomp out malignant processes in our patients, we sure tolerate a fair amount of destructive behavior among training programs. I’ll be the first to say I’m not the most delicate flower in the garden. Before pursuing med…
Be an upstander and not a bystander [PODCAST]
“The incident bothered me all day and the following many days. I couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was and brushed it aside and stopped thinking about it. In the wake of recent events, it dawned upon me that it wasn’t the patient’s comments …
Attacks on osteopathic medicine are attacks on all physicians
It was distressing to hear and read recent and ongoing disparaging comments about osteopathic medicine, attacking one of our own, from remarks by Rachel Maddow to tweets by Cher and a derogatory video, since removed, portraying a female DO by Figs Scru…
A physician receives a derogatory email. Here’s what she did next. [PODCAST]
“The disparity of women physicians in research is a systemic issue that should be mitigated appropriately. Women, especially minorities and immigrants, need institutional support to succeed as clinician-investigators. Medical institutions should…
Doctors already are actors, whether they want to be ones or not
The era of the empowered patient and patient-centered health care has been upon us for some time. Only a generation ago, there was a much more paternalistic approach to medicine. This has changed for the better across the western world. As somebody who…
We’re not trying to survive, but to humanize
An excerpt from Man’s 4th Best Hospital. “Why am I here?” the Fat Man was saying to us, his team gathered for the first time around in his new public clinic leaning up against one of the soaring buildings of Man’s 4th. “And why are you? One day I…
Thank a health care worker. Get a flu shot.
I evaluated the patient in one of our designated exam rooms for persons under investigation (PUIs) for COVID-19, fully doffed in personal protective equipment (PPE): an uncomfortable, resonant face shield over my surgical mask, looking like Big Bird in…
