The last patient of the day gets the least care

He entered the hospital on Monday morning with a list of patients running through his mind. From the time he received a sign out of 22 patients from his colleague on Sunday evening, he was planning his workday. It was a ritual of his to pray and sleep early on Sunday night to prepare him for what lie ahead. What lied ahead was a busy week of inpatient medicine — also known as hospital medicine. He was a hospitalist. He loved what he did. He worked hard to understand his patients as individuals and did his best to understand the diseases that ruthlessly and mercilessly afflicted them. With time, effort and dedication, he had become a consummate clinician. He and the nurses he worked with would often marvel at his ability to predict badness. In the hospital, badness can be very bad and ugly, but most people don’t know that. He knew it well, very well indeed. Instead of focusing on quality metrics like length of stay he would focus on his patient at hand and what ravaged them. He almost always was able to figure out who the patient was and what his disease was. He would put two and two together, diagnose and then treat the disease, ask his specialist colleagues for help when needed. He worked with social workers, case managers, physical, speech, respiratory and occupational therapists to guide the patient and his family out of the hospital. Sometimes patients would recover completely. Sometimes they would get worse and end up in intensive care or pass away. Sometimes, death ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Primary care Source Type: blogs