February 28, 2018 |  1
“We are playing the same sport, but a different game,” the wise, thoughtful emergency medicine attending physician once told me. “I am playing speed chess – I need to make a move quickly, or I lose – no matter what. My moves have to be right, but they don’t always necessarily need to be the […]
February 26, 2018 |  2
The sudden resignation of White House staff secretary Rob Porter got me to thinking. Let me say up front this post isn’t about politics. And by the time it gets uploaded, our national ten-minute news cycle will probably have moved on to some other world crisis or titillating disclosure and people will be saying, “Rob […]
February 22, 2018 |  1
“One-out-of-three”. I’m going to say that one more time: “One-out-of-three”. That’s the amount of medical resources that a group of surveyed hospitalists believe is used toward defensive medicine. Can you think of any other aspect of your life in which 1/3 of your decisions are made, not to optimize the outcome, but “just to be […]
February 20, 2018 |  6
“We Need Creative Solutions” When I read or hear the sentence above, I think of one thing and one thing only. The solution is long in coming, involves input from multiple parties, has no obvious fix, is costly–in either money or time, and we undergird it by a whopper of a collective action problem. How […]
February 12, 2018 |  1
We grab some popcorn on the way in. Maybe a drink. The place is bustling, bright lights lead the way, and the kids grab all the new objects at each turn. Another fun Saturday night about to begin. At Target. Yep, spending the weekend evening strolling the aisles of a big box store: family fun […]
February 6, 2018 |  0
You are a hospitalist. Like all hospitalists, you struggle with the pace, the hours, the complexity of demands placed upon your clinical time, the dratted medical record, burnout. You sometimes feel the collaborative process with your consulting colleagues could be improved. You often feel that you are treated like a “glorified resident”, with consultants, or […]