Tag: emergency-medicine-2

Leadership in the ED: Being a Floor General for Your Team

March 20th, 2012
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In sports, the most successful athletes are not necessarily those that have had the best individual statistics, but are those that have managed to make their teammates better around them: Magic Johnson, Isaiah Thomas, or to use a hot new name – Jeremy Lin.  These athletes epitomize selfless leadership on the court. While their own […]

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Posted in Life in the ER

America’s Healthcare System Needs a Social Contract

March 15th, 2012
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As a citizen it’s easy to clamor for rights. It’s much harder to live up to our responsibilities. And so it is in health care. As citizens we have implicitly agreed to abide by a social contract, which means a person’s moral and political obligations are dependent on an agreement among them to form the […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare

We Want Our Healthcare Like We Want our Fast Food

February 24th, 2012
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With due respect to those patient souls among us, America is, in general, an impatient nation. That includes how we think about our healthcare. This is why I read with some interest, and some amusement, stories like “A real ‘doc fix,’” published this week in the New York Times. Basically it says we need to […]

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Posted in Quality Efficiency Utilization

Maryland’s Health Information Exchange Helps Take the Blinders off Emergency Care

February 21st, 2012
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The headline on a Washington Post story last week was enough to give almost any healthcare consumer a moment’s pause: “Maryland Hospitals to Share Patient Data.” To which a patient might respond, “Wait, You Mean Hospitals Don’t Share Data Now?” We see it in the Emergency Department all the time. Patients come in who have […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare

After 20 Years in Emergency Medicine, The Worries and Tools I Take to a New ER

January 24th, 2012
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When I completed my training nearly 20 years ago, I always wondered what type of emergency department I would work in. Two decades later I can say I’ve worked in a lot of different emergency departments, seven of them to be specific. They range from bustling suburban hospitals to small rural facilities to busy trauma […]

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Posted in Life in the ER, Quality Efficiency Utilization

Emergency Medicine – Whom Do We Serve?

March 30th, 2011
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I give a talk to new employees regarding service in emergency medicine. One of the questions I pose is whom do we serve when we practice emergency medicine? Seems like a simple question. We serve patients that come to the ER desiring care. At the most basic level that is indeed what we do. Like […]

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Posted in Leadership, Life in the ER

Body Language and Caring for Our Patients

September 7th, 2010
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The next patient was a 25 year old female in room 2. The nurse’s note read, “severe abdominal pain – rates it a 10 out of 10.” Like any good emergency medicine physician, I was already considering the differential diagnosis prior to entering the room. Severe pain in a young female could be an ectopic, […]

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Posted in Life in the ER, Patient Satisfaction

Interview Season in Emergency Medicine

December 3rd, 2009
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There is a season for everything in life. As well as being the holiday season, now is the peak interview season in medicine. It is the time when many young and well-trained residents set out in the world looking for that one elusive goal: the perfect job. Of course, everyone knows there is no “perfect […]

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Posted in For Residents

Planning For Our Future In Medicine

November 12th, 2009
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Man makes plans and God laughs This past week our physicians group did what many companies do once a year: strategic planning. The format is pretty standard. Pick a place away from your usual site for business, gather together the leadership of your organization, develop priorities on how to make your company better and make […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare