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Hospital Medicine: Trying To Recruit A Lead Doctor

How can you find a hospitalist director with enough experience to lead a team of hospitalists? Recruitment can be tough. A reader recently asked for my opinion:

I am searching for a Hospitalist to lead a department in the state of XXX and I’m not finding any leads. On a good day, I can find a new graduate interested in moving to XXX, but I have not been able to find an experienced Hospitalist who has the supervisory experience to lead a department.  …and this is an opportunity (full time & permanent) for good pay with an excellent work/life balance. Where would you suggest I look for my Lead Hospitalist?

My first thought is for you to purchase a booth at the Society of Hospital Medicine’s yearly conference and then bombard all the hospitalists with pens and squeezy balls while trying to pocket an email and home address or two. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

The Big Apple Tells Smokers To Take A Hike (And Not In The Park)

It looks like New York City is leading the way for public health safety by introducing a public smoking ban in all public parks, malls, plazas, beaches and playgrounds or risk a $50 fine:

Research showed, he said, that someone seated within three feet of a smoker — even in the open air — was exposed to roughly the same levels of secondhand smoke as someone sitting indoors in the same situation.

What took so long? Go, New York. I hope you succeed. Next up: Charging parents who smoke in their homes occupied by minors with child negligence.

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

When Doctors And Nurses Don’t Get Along

What do you do when doctors and nurses don’t get along? A reader asks for my advice:

Hi Happy,

I have this problem and wanted some advice from someone with more experience dealing with this.

I have been bashed by nurses because they expect me to know all the bureaucratic issues, when you don’t have more than a month in the hospital. I have noticed that nurses get mad, when you give them an instruction  they don’t understand, or they aren’t used to, not because you are wrong, but instead, their lack of ignorance, or their narrow process of thought. One example of this is when they laugh at me cause i prescribed a generic medication of a common drug that they weren’t familiar with the generic name.

Days ago, a first-year family doctor was yelled at badly by some nurse because she filled in the prescription chart where she shouldn’t — she didn’t know because no one told her. I have seen that attitude several times from different nurses — they yell in a very unproper manner. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

“Step Away From The Chart Or I’ll Be Forced To Give You Chemo”

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

Doctors Meet A Decade Later

I just had my ten-year medical school reunion. It’s hard for me to imagine it’s been ten years since my last medical school class. It’s been fourteen years since that first week of gross anatomy. That class was so hard, I almost dropped out of medical school after one week.

A bunch of us local docs from my medical school class of 2000 rode to academic mecca in a stretch limo. What did I learn from my experience at my ten-year medical school reunion? Other than forgetting a few names:

  • When I was in medical school, lots of medical students, on occasion, would  drink heavily. I learned ten years later some doctors, on occasion, still drink heavily and get drunk.
  • When I was in medical school, lots of medical students smoked cigarettes. I learned ten years later some doctors, on occasion, still smoke (but only when they’re drinking). Apparently.
  • When I was in medical school, some students were really funny. I learned ten years later some doctors, on occasion, are still really funny, even when they aren’t drunk.
  • When I was in medical school, some students were really smart. I learned ten years later some doctors, on occasion, are still really smart. Most of us others have been dumbed down with years of practice.

It was fun to learn about what my colleagues have been doing. Ten years later the cellphones are a bit fancier, everyone’s talking about their Facebook page, and I’m completely content sitting  on the couch with Mrs. Happy watching everyone else get drunk like it was yesterday.

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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