Medicine

It always bothers me when patients seem less interested in focusing on their visit than I am.

The leadership where I work likes to claim that our local hospital and I have the same goals. Well, they are wrong.

Drs Groopman and Hartzband, in Your Medical Mind, reference the phenomenon of ‘creeping paternalism’ in medicine. How true.

I am old enough to have been able to watch the nurse practitioner role in medicine evolve from a misunderstood and distrusted ‘physician extender’ to a real colleague. It will be interesting to see how the doctorate of nurse practice (DNP) evolves.

The language of medicine is highly evolved and complex and allows clear, detailed, specific and unambiguous descriptions. Except when it’s not.

Dr. V has a great blog post here. Worth reading, as most of his posts are.

At the suggestion of a colleague, I submitted one of my blog posts to the FMEC ‘This I believe’ contest. To my surprise, it was selected as an award winner, and this past Sunday, October 22nd, I attended their annual Northeast meeting to read my essay (accompanied by a slide show of my photographs) and receive my award. It was tremendous fun and energizing, and has renewed my determination to return to teaching family practice residents, at least part time, over the next year.

The essay in its revised (for presentation) form is published here below the fold…

Shortly after 3:00 I was sitting and listening to Chloe’s precise clinical description.

A disappointing John Tierney article about decision fatigue in the New York Times magazine section is just the most recent in a collection of equally disappointing discussions of an issue that is both widespread and important.

He walked in without an appointment and asked the receptionist for a ‘subscription for penicillin.’ Judy buzzed me, saying in the special quiet tone she used for urgent matters, that I needed to come to the desk - now. He was an impressive sight, big enough to have to stoop to talk to Judy through the window and wide enough to completely block the view of the waiting room behind him.