Recently while following my twitter feed, I noticed the following from an associate editor from The Health Care Blog who quoted Dr. Lucian Leape, Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Leape wondered why the patient safety movement hadn’t moved. He noted four reasons: Doctor resistance Doctors don’t do teams Difficult culture. No leadership. Though I did not attend the conference where Dr. Leape spoke, the answer seemed pretty obvious. To solve the problem you need leadership. It is leadership that defines the culture, whether teamwork is valued, and whether change occurs. The reason health care has not moved forward quickly enough simply because there has been a void of physician leadership across the entire health care system. There have been plenty of initiatives to improve patient safety over the past decade since the Institute of Medicine “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System“, but as stories demonstrate many of […] Read More »
Tag Archive for physician leadership
2013 – Year of the Physician Leader
Posted on April 8, 2013
In a time of crisis is when leaders step forward. If our nation faces one crisis, then it is that of the health care system which increasingly is unaffordable and trails other industrialized countries in quality and access. If there was a time leadership was needed then it would be now. As doctors, we should be providing this leadership. No longer can we let others dictate how health care should look. No longer can we simply abdicate responsibility to our patients by claiming that how much treatments or therapies cost are not our issue or our concern. As healers we need to do more than ever. If there is optimism for our future, then it is due to the examples set by health care organizations that are actively solving the issues of cost, quality, and access and the commensurate rise of physician leadership, which is increasingly apparent through engagement with […] Read More »
Is David Goldhill Fix For Health Care Right?
Posted on March 12, 2013
First I believe our health care system must be better so I’m always curious to hear how others might propose to fix it. I recently had the opportunity to listen in two conversations with businessman David Goldhill about how healthcare might be made better. Goldhill lost his father to a hospital acquired infection and witnessed multiple errors during his hospitalization which compelled him to write not only a piece in the September 2009 Atlantic titled How American Health Care Killed My Father, but also a new book titled, Catastrophic Care: Why Everything We Think We Know about Health Care Is Wrong (Vintage). The first conversation was with New Yorker writer and best selling author Malcolm Gladwell. The second with Professor Ashish Jha, MD, MPH of Harvard medical school and Harvard School of Public Health. Does his solution offer the right prescription? Maybe. Maybe not. As a practicing primary care doctor passionate […] Read More »
Book Review – When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests
Posted on February 5, 2013
The premise of the book When Doctors Don’t Listen is that increasingly doctors are adhering to algorithms and protocols, known as “cookbook medicine”. In the process, doctors are not listening to patients. Instead, doctors are hearing what they want to hear, ignoring the patient’s story, which results in medical evaluations and treatments which are erroneous. The consequence can be delay in care, unnecessary tests and worry, and at times the path taken is so far astray that patients need to fend for themselves. In one anecdote, a patient flees the emergency room after being evaluated for a headache after a hangover and discovers that her treatment is on the pathway to be evaluated for a possible life-threatening (and highly improbable) subarachnoid hemorrhage which includes an invasive lumbar puncture. Too far fetched? Do these problems affect a no name hospital? No. What makes the patient stories most interesting is where they […] Read More »
Doctors Must Lead Change in Gun Control and Mental Illness by following our Founding Fathers
Posted on December 17, 2012
I haven’t give much thought about gun control, but since the horrific unspeakable tragedy which occurred in Sandy Hook, Connecticut where 20 children and 6 adults were killed, I like many others are. Increasingly, crime scenes are now including movie theaters, malls, and schools, places where people escape reality, find gifts, goods or services for themselves, loved ones, or friends, and where the next generation of pupils learn. This trend must stop. For me, this tragedy is far more personal. I used to live not too far from the picturesque quintessential New England town, Newtown. My children are roughly the same age as those children lost. The medical students I mentor aren’t much younger than the teachers killed. As a practicing doctor, I believe that this event will forever change the way the country views gun control. It is becoming a public health issue. As doctors, we pledge to do […] Read More »
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