Issues with Medicine

On the white coat.Everyone wears one. I wonder why. I think patients are starting to realize that it’s actually those of us *without* a white coat that are the doctors.On Customer Service.How stressful would it be if you actually gave a damn about patient satisfaction scores. Not because it’s not a worthy goal to be customer friendly; but because these scores are derived from so many factors that you, as a doctor, have absolutely no control over. Wait times, parking, whether or not you have access to old medical records. Think about it, if a patient in the ED waits 8 hours, cannot tell the difference between a doctor and a nurse manager (because everyone is wearing a white coat), gets a CNA that treats them shitty, and then goes out to their car and finds a parking ticket on the windshield….you can bet that when a survey is sent to them asking them to rate their ED doc…they’re going to use this only opportunity, to show how frustrating it was for them. And when that patient decides to go elsewhere next time, it’s the MDs who are spanked.On Complaints.All complaints don’t deserve a ‘full investigation.’ The drug seeker who’s pissed off because I wouldn’t use my medical license, and my medical education/professional decision making capacity, to give him the drugs he seeks (i.e. I decide my job isn’t to serve as his drug dealer), he complains. Subsequently the wheels start rolling…and eventually I get to ‘respond’ to this complaint. Frankly, I donâ€...
Source: EM Physician - Backstage Pass - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Source Type: blogs