“I am really uncomfortable and in pain,” said Elaine tearfully as I met her in the preoperative area for the first time. She had a very sad and difficult history, dealing with complications from childbirth nearly two years ago. She had developed a comm…
I spent my early and mid-career years working in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at a large academic center. We did almost everything except for a few things esoteric at the time — small bowel transplants, a few kinds of experimental surgery. I’…
Two of my local hospitals just invested 3 to 4 million dollars in preparation for an inspection of the facilities by the Joint Commission. The cost of the inspection runs in the $10 million dollar range after the preparation costs. The inspection is a …
“Admission diagnosis: causa socialis” In my training in Sweden, it was not unusual to admit patients to the hospital for social reasons: an elderly person who could no longer manage at home, a person whose social network fell apart, and so on. “Social …
I enjoy talking to random people about their experiences with health care. As somebody who regularly travels all over the country, for both work and pleasure (I far prefer the latter), whenever I meet people in situations where you end up talking ̵…
Retirement has gotten me edgy. Three months after departing, I had begun spending too much time horizontal, which I forced myself to remedy but then finding myself with nothing to do. Moreover, things have gotten more noticeably like Bowling Alone, an …
Health care safety efforts have long focused on improving the behavior of providers and improving the systems of care. A proven model of safety is in the airline industry. There are undoubtedly many parallels between airline safety and health care work…
I was recently seeing a rather complicated medical patient in the hospital. We were treating both a heart and kidney condition, and things were not going so well. To spare anyone non-medical who is reading this the scientific details of the bodily proc…
First impressions are critical. We are taught early in our careers that first impressions truly matter. Whether interviewing for medical school or a residency program, our goal is to make a positive first impression in hopes of making the cut at each c…
On a recent vacation, I went out to eat at a small, out-of-the-way restaurant we always visit on our trips to the Outer Banks. There, I spotted a poster on the wall explaining why the cafe no longer uses plastic bags or plastic straws: to keep the mate…
