September 1st, 2010 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
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In a surprising report from the Archives of Internal Medicine, we learn that most hospitalized patients (82 percent) could not accurately name the physician responsible for their care and almost half of the patients did not even know their diagnosis or why they were admitted.
If that isn’t enough, when the researchers queried the physicians, 67 percent thought the patients knew their name and 77 percent of doctors thought the patients “understood their diagnoses at least somewhat well.” I would call that a pretty significant communication gap.
Ninety percent of the patients said they received a new medication and didn’t know the side effects. Although 98 percent of physicians thought they discussed their patients’ fears and anxieties with them, only 54 percent of patients thought they did. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
August 31st, 2010 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Opinion, True Stories
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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*
