December 7th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements, Medblogger Shout Outs
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Dr. Ramona Bates is a plastic surgeon who quilts. Dr. Rob Lamberts is a primary care physician who loves animals that begin with the letter “l” (such as lobsters and llamas). The two have put their creative minds together to benefit brain cancer – in honor of a fellow blogger whose young son is losing his battle with the disease.
This holiday season, you might consider bidding on Dr. Bates’ “lobster quilt” to support brain cancer research. There is a silent auction in progress here. Owning the quilt would make a good story, and the return on investment could be priceless. You can search for updates on the auction on Twitter: #lobsterquilt
P.S. Note that Dr. Rob has also started a traveling lobster initiative – where Zippy the plastic lobster is photographed by medical bloggers around the world to enhance awareness of brain cancer. I had the honor of hosting this little crustacean last summer, and took him to the White House. To learn more about Zippy’s travels, check out this website: http://funwithzippy.com/
December 7th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor, Medblogger Shout Outs
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The blogosphere is not immune to “one-upmanship” – and a good example can be found on Dr. Rob’s blog. He claims to be “jealous” of the interviews I’ve been doing with hospital executives and celebrity spokespeople. So in order to keep up with this Jones, Dr. Rob landed the biggest interview of the season: one with Santa Claus himself.
Dr. Rob has some interesting ideas about healthcare reform for Santa, so whether you’ve been naughty or nice, head on over to Musings of a Distractible Mind for the scoop.
December 7th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Audio, Expert Interviews
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Nancy Schlichting
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“Detroit is the poorest city in America. But we’re not going to be victims of circumstance. We’re going to rise up and lead the country in healthcare quality and become part of the economic solution for our community. The Henry Ford hospital name must mean something when people drive up to it.”
– Nancy Schlichting, President and CEO, The Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, Michigan
I sheepishly admit to being surprised that a hospital system in Detroit was singled out for a national award for hospital quality and safety. Who would think that the poorest city in America could be a beacon of light in these dark times in healthcare? The story of Henry Ford Health System, and its female president and CEO, Nancy Schlichting, is both inspirational and motivational. I had the chance to interview Nancy at a recent award ceremony at the National Press Club where she received the 2008 National Health System Patient Safety Leadership Award.
You may enjoy our conversation via podcast, but please forgive the “tinny” sound quality. I recorded our conversation with a little hand-held digital device instead of my usual recorded phone line.
[Audio:http://blog.getbetterhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/nancyschlichting.mp3]
Dr. Val: Congratulations on winning the National Health System Patient Safety Leadership Award. Has improving patient safety at your hospital been a challenge?
Schlichting: On a given day, a patient may encounter up to 50 different hospital employees. Coordinating our efforts so that the patient’s experience is consistently positive and error-free is certainly challenging.
We have 7 pillars of performance at Henry Ford, and the first is “people.” We like to say that we “have to take care of the people who are taking care of people.” We need to make sure that they have the resources they need, that the processes are in place so they can do their jobs well, and that they get their individual needs met. For example, everyone knows my email address and they can contact me at any time if they’re not getting their problems resolved. I respond to every single email. This creates a culture of openness and responsibility. They know that the person at the top cares about them.
Dr. Val: A prominent community member experienced an unfortunate lapse in communication during his hospital stay, which resulted in compromise of his care, and he eventually died in the hospital. You personally met with his wife and promised her that you’d take the necessary steps to ensure that this never happened again. Tell me more about that.
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December 6th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor
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You know those people who still have their Christmas lights up in April? Yeah, that’s always annoyed me… But I’m afraid that I’ve recently been reminded of the old Muslim proverb: “Don’t point fingers because three will be pointing back at you.”
My exasperation level has reached a creschendo and I think I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands. My husband has been keeping rotting organic material on our balcony, and it is a source of growing embarrassment.
Exhibit A
Exhibit A: Rosemary bush from Christmas ’07. This little bush was purchased by my husband in an effort to bring the “holiday spirit” to our household last year. I had previously argued that killing trees was not part of the true meaning of Christmas and that I didn’t relish the idea of sweeping up pine needles for months. Besides, we don’t have kids, so why get a tree at all? So he got me a rosemary bush and decorated it with items from my jewelry box. It was amusing at the time. But the bush is still alive (albeit barely) and on our balcony in time for Christmas ’08.
Exhibit B
Exhibit B: A pumpkin that was carved by my husband in late October, 2008. He found the vegetable at our local farmer’s market and asked me to participate in creating a Jack-O-Lantern. He insisted that my “considerable artistic talent” could be applied to the pumpkin with great effect. I responded that since our balcony faces a series of rooftop fume hoods, I doubted that the proud display of such an effort would be appreciated by more than the local rodent population. So hubby carved the pumpkin himself (using a simple stencil) and placed his work directly in front of my office window. It made me chuckle, but little did I know that he planned to allow the pumpkin to “degrade naturally to fertilize the bamboo” after it had served its holiday purpose.
I suppose that these two balcony dwellers serve as a reminder of my own “Grinchly” ways. Nonetheless, I’m coming to the end of my rope and am poised with garbage bag in hand to start the 2008 holidays with a clean slate. Would you agree that it’s time to remove the exhibits? With whom do you relate more: the organic-matter-hording husband, or the curmudgeonly wife?
December 5th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Opinion
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Thanks to KevinMD for pointing out a recent NYT article about “etiquette-based medicine.” The author, a psychiatrist, suggests that physicians should use a check list to ensure courteous behavior and that this sort of thing should be taught in medical school. His suggestions were also published in the New England Journal of Medicine:
• Ask permission to enter the room; wait for an answer.
• Introduce yourself; show your ID badge.
• Shake hands.
• Sit down. Smile if appropriate.
• Explain your role on the health care team.
• Ask how the patient feels about being in the hospital.
If this sort of thing isn’t intuitively obvious to a physician then I’d say the blame should rest with his parents not his medical school. I mean, do we really need to teach doctors to knock on doors and smile on cue? Aren’t those sorts of things taught in pre-school?
It grieves me that some of my peers do not display what some might call “normal behavior” when interacting with patients. But I don’t think that’s related to their medical school curriculae – it’s the sad result of a broken healthcare system that wears thin our common human decency. Doctors are exhausted by clinical volume, henpecked by bureaucracy, delirious from lack of sleep, and stressed out by the daily grind of bad news, disease progression, and death. When well-groomed adults of sound mind require a checklist in order to smile appropriately, you know something’s terribly wrong.
Now, I don’t excuse disrespectful behavior – we docs must rise above our natural urge to be irritable at times, and remember that our patients are vulnerable and need our help. But for heaven’s sake… let’s drop the smug check lists and finger pointing. We’re all in this together, and it ain’t pretty.
