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

When Are ER Docs Hunting the Snark?

March 5th, 2012
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The old saying about the doctor who tells a patient to “take two of these and call me in the morning” is losing its meaning in today’s modern healthcare system. Today, doctors are weary of sending their patients home without something more, usually an expensive test that either confirms or (less commonly) contradicts their diagnosis.  […]

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Posted in Life in the ER, Quality Efficiency Utilization

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

When an Emergency Room Gets New Management, Relationships Come First

January 20th, 2012
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It’s no big surprise that there is anxiety when a new management group takes over an Emergency Department. The question is, what can our group do to effectively confront that anxiety? At midnight on December 31st, 2011, our group took over management of the emergency room at Bristol Hospital. The previous group had managed the ER there […]

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Posted in Hospital Partnership, Leadership, Life in the ER

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

Improving Healthcare Literacy

March 14th, 2011
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Emergency medicine has long been called the “safety net” in our medical system, taking care of people who cannot access healthcare through other avenues. While emergency medicine would be more efficient if we only saw true emergencies, this is not a practical reality in today’s healthcare system. We take care of patients with urgent conditions; […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare

Reflections from a Year Anniversary as an Emergency Medicine Attending

September 14th, 2010
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Looking back over my first year of practice in emergency medicine, it’s hard to pick out one thing that stands out. It has really been a blur. Without reflection I might not be able to appreciate the tremendous change I’ve undergone as an attending emergency physician. Change is difficult. It’s stressful and chaotic. Even change for […]

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Posted in For Residents, Life in the ER