A Difficult Patient
I have come to believe that humility is an essential component of wisdom. Never have I found this more true than in the practice of medicine. In fact, for almost every atrocious professional error in judgment I have made, I can pinpoint the exact moment where I stopped being humble.Yet time and time again, humility quickly disappears when dealing with the difficult patient. In fact the label,difficult, assumes the problem lies within the patient and not the technique being utilized by the care provider. Already blame is turned outward and personal responsibility abandoned.A few years ago, when I was in a gro...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - February 22, 2017 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
No Longer There
The phone is ringing.The phone is ringing.THE PHONE IS RINGING!I sometimes feel my heart race. In the middle of the night. When I get a phone call. Or during the day. While taking a leisurely walk with my family by the lake. The sun streaming through clouds on a brisk morning, interrupted by a fall in room 36. An abrasion. A cardiac arrest. One phone call on top of another, Occasionally so many that the calls on hold are dropped. Or not so occasionally.During dinner. While in the shower. Sitting on the toilet. Day and night. A faint pain in the ear where the blue toot...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - February 19, 2017 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
Five Moments-Coming Soon
(Source: In My Humble Opinion)
Source: In My Humble Opinion - February 16, 2017 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
I Don't Understand Burnout
I have a confession to make. I don ' t understand the concept of burnout. I mean, I get the idea. Medicine is, at least when you are the kind of doctor who deals with life and death, inherently stressful. And I feel the stress. It ' s as if someone applied a vice grip to my insides in the middle of medical school, and it has never let up since. The pressure is unrelenting, progressive, and downright painful. It has gotten worse with every successive career milestone.Brutal. It ' s brutal. I new it would be after a few weeks of rotations on the medical wards. The more respon...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - February 14, 2017 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
I Don't Understand Burnout
I have a confession to make. I don't understand the concept of burnout. I mean, I get the idea. Medicine is, at least when you are the kind of doctor who deals with life and death, inherently stressful. And I feel the stress. It's as if someone applied a vice grip to my insides in the middle of medical school, and it has never let up since. The pressure is unrelenting, progressive, and downright painful. It has gotten worse with every successive career milestone.Brutal. It's brutal. I new it would be after a few weeks of rotations on the medical wards. The more responsibili...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - February 14, 2017 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
Juxtaposition
My son,You will face this. You will stand at the crossroads of skill and preparedness. Although your heart may tremble, your hands will be still. Although your thoughts may race, your mind will be firm. Each one of us must enter the coliseum unadorned from time to time. Over and over again, we do battle. Skill and knowledge spring forth from failure, not success.I can help prepare you for this moment. I can congeal my accrued wisdom into consumable morsels for you to chew. I can arm you with knowledge and skill. But I cannot do battle for you. Not this time. I will bri...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - February 10, 2017 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
How the patient ends up on the wrong end of the stick
It would never have gone down this way ten years ago whenlength of stay was all the buzz. The Cat Scan would have been done in the emergency department, and the patient would either have been discharged or admitted for a a quick observation stay. Bing, bang, boom. One, two three.Instead, the CT was pushed until morning. A resident saw the patient at midnight and then not a single practitioner note in the EMR for nearly eighteen hours. The hospitalist eventually deferred on the scan and called for a consult, which was scheduled for the next day because of the late hour.After a busy day of surgery, the sp...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - February 6, 2017 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
How the patient ends up on the wrong end of the stick
It would never have gone down this way ten years ago whenlength of stay was all the buzz. The Cat Scan would have been done in the emergency department, and the patient would either have been discharged or admitted for a a quick observation stay. Bing, bang, boom. One, two three.Instead, the CT was pushed until morning. A resident saw the patient at midnight and then not a single practitioner note in the EMR for nearly eighteen hours. The hospitalist eventually deferred on the scan and called for a consult, which was scheduled for the next day because of the late hour. After a busy day of surgery, ...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - February 5, 2017 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
Turned Away
Too many times I feel We are losing time once shared And only when you're in ecstasy You seem to really careI recognize the song immediately. Chuckii Booker. Turned Away. Not the regular version, but the extended. As the words rush over me, caressing my nostalgia, a memory, a moment comes back. I was standing behind the counter at Homer's Ice Cream on a brilliant summer morning before the doors opened. We were setting up. One of the managers turned the volume up, and the radio blared through the speakers. The shades had been pulled back from the storefront wi...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - February 4, 2017 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
