A contract is an agreement stipulating the rights and obligations of the signatories. In most cases, a contract is consulted when a dispute arises. When all is proceeding swimmingly, the contract remains dormant in a file drawer or in a digital file. In general, decent people resolve differences in the old-fashioned way utilizing the twin […]
Everybody is a stakeholder these days in what we broadly call medicine, or health care. But there is little agreement on what medicine is and what the priorities of the health care “industry” should be. I propose this breakdown of medicine into three separate phenomena. 1. Micromedicine 2. Macromedicine 3. Metamedicine Let me explain: Micromedicine: […]
We should consider a new position in our primary care teams — that of the scrum master. “Scrum” is a rugby term that comes from agile, a work methodology for software development that now is being applied to industry and health care. In rugby, a scrum is a huddle where the teams come together with […]
It’s hard for me to believe that a few years ago, I completely turned my back on an acting career I had spent almost two decades building and instead decided to forge into an unknown world of medicine. Even now, with nearly seven years of experience in the medical field and currently in my fourth […]
A few weeks ago, I was giving a day-long seminar in California on improving communication skills, optimizing the patient experience, and how this is all ultimately linked to better proven outcomes. Part of the day involved doing role plays, playing the part of doctors and patients in various difficult hypothetical scenarios. My experience of this […]
Earlier this week, I was pleased to learn that my practice had achieved a statistically significant increase in box clicking. In reviewing data from our accountable care organization, graphs were shown to us demonstrating improved compliance with several of the measures that they’ve instituted institution-wide for the purpose of reporting back to Medicare on how […]
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com. It can be as blatant as a public argument between a hospitalist and emergency medicine physician about whether a patient requires admission. But most commonly it is more nuanced and subtle. Such as members of one speciality “bad-mouthing” another or a subspecialist criticizing […]
The other day I felt like a used car salesman. I was carefully phrasing my words, picking out just the right ones — the kind that really pack a punch — and delivering them at the right moment, with the perfect momentum. I was trying to make a sale. Now, my cadence happened to be spot […]
My country rotation as a medical student was overshadowed by a heated argument between the general practitioner and his wife. She was sacrificing her life in this “hole of a place” and angrily stormed out to visit her children in boarding school in the city. Decades later, I now understand the frustration and challenges of […]
I saw two patients with a chief complaint of bubbles in their urine this month. One middle-aged woman had eaten some wild mushrooms she was pretty sure she had identified correctly, but once her urine turned bubbly a few days later, she came in to make sure her kidneys were OK. Even though she was […]
