Mea sententia

There are limits in both music and medicine. Go beyond those limits, and disaster is inevitable.

Two quotes from Donald Berwick’s Escape Fire address sum it up quite nicely.

The small balcony of our motel in Port Angeles afforded me a fine view. Sitting there, I enjoyed spectacular sunsets, a wide range of shore birds, and the ferries coming in and leaving from Victoria across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Shortcuts, humorously defined as the longest path between two points, can be dangerous in clinical medicine.

The first of November is the official end of the trail running season and the first of December is the official start of the Nordic skiing season. November serves as a transition month.

Close calls and near misses are common terms for bad things that almost - but didn’t - happen. 

The Grand Rounds presentation that week was in the form of a Clinical Pathological Conference (CPC), a medical tradition where a case is presented to an expert or panel of experts in front of an audience of clinicians. The presentation is usually done in the order the information became available during the patient’s hospital course and the experts ask questions, discuss what they think is going on and why, are given more data based on the questions they ask, and ultimately try to come to the diagnosis that was proved at surgery or autopsy.

Well, I had a post about this subject in notes and outline form in my pile. But Dr V handles it so well, it seems silly for me not to simply give him credit and send you to his site.

You surely know the difference between a chisel and a screwdriver, but have you thought about what happens if you ignore the difference?

The simplest toy, one which even the youngest child can operate, is called a grandparent.  (Sam Levenson)