Think you can do anything you set your mind to? Think again.

During my salad days, I — like a lot of physicians — thought I could take on the world. Despite working in a smaller, community hospital, our ER saw a lot of the same type of orthopedic trauma I saw during residency. And my young partners and I took virtually every case that came in except spinal trauma. We did this whether we were on unassigned ER call or not and irrespective of insurance coverage. If I was on call for a weekend, it was not uncommon for me to not make it home until late Monday. Looking back, I can’t believe I actually did what I did, but I was quite proud of the results — comparable to any level 1 trauma center. But time, wisdom and experience plus the sting of reality eventually catch up with you, and it usually comes with a moment of epiphany. My moment came about three years into my practice when I took on the case of a bad pylon fracture — a bone smashed up at the ankle end of the shin bone. Even today, this a difficult injury to treat with unpredictable results and a lot of potential complications. That’s what happened here. Several months later, after several surgeries, hours of my time and relatively little reimbursement, this patient sued for malpractice, my first. I remember the deposition with a shudder. An eight-hour ordeal where I was constantly grilled as to why I made each decision that I did with little success on the part of the plaintiff’s attorney in determining whether I did anything wrong. Continue reading ... Y...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Policy Emergency Orthopedics Source Type: blogs