This is a blog about how lack of common sense leads to common nonsense in medical practice. The result is often Status Iatrogenicus, or a vicious cycle of complications, burdensome care, wasted resources, and missed opportunities. This blog aims a critical eye at various aspects of medical practice that just plain don't make sense - because the cure for common nonsense is uncommon sense.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Underperforming the Market: Why Researchers are Worse than Professional Stock Pickers and A Way Out
Friday, April 4, 2014
Dated but Not Outdated: Why the Pager Endures as a Means of Physician Communication
In this post on the Huffington Post yesterday, Sachin Jain, a physician and presumably a technophile, bemoans the enduring use of pagers among physicians, labeling pager carriers as outdated and failing to leverage available technology to make communication more efficient. As a devoted pager carrier, I will enumerate the many reasons why the pager is a preferred communication modality for many physicians, and the ways in which Dr. Jain is missing the point.
- Patient Safety. I work in the ICU. If there is something that the RN needs to inform me, s/he needs to know that I have received the message. If said RN (or intern or resident or other physician) pages me and I respond, they know I know. If instead they send a text message or leave a voice mail, they do not know that I received the message. They assume I did, and move on to other tasks. If I did not receive the message, time sensitive things can get missed or delayed and that's a big safety issue.
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