Reading through the responses to my post from yesterday, I realized that Steph and webhill were taking the conversation in a new direction.* I'd like to expand on their very valid points.
These kind responders shared similar stories of supposedly "abnormal" health metrics that initiated some sort of protocol, even when it didn't make an ounce of sense. Two healthy newborns subjected to unnecessary (and costly) interventions. Another similar experience to mine regarding "low" blood pressure.
You don't need any medical knowledge, really, to figure out that Steph's baby didn't need to go to the NICU, or that webhill's didn't need formula. Heck, you don't need a day of medical or nursing school to know that the resident's patient from yesterday's code story was perfectly fine.
So, what is happening in nursing and medical school that strips that common sense away? Certainly the first two years of medical school focus on learning the minutiae of how the body works - biochemistry, anatomy, etc. All that time spent memorizing neurotransmitters and cell receptor signals then yields to being ready to respond instantly to your attending's pimping in the third and fourth years about the coagulation cascade or your patient's colonoscopy biopsy results from eight years ago.
The partialists** especially seemed to delight in these details when I was a medical student. Frankly, it seemed then - and it seems now - that those practitioners best able to see the whole picture were - and are - the family docs. Perhaps it's because they are the only ones truly taught to think about the patient as a whole being and not a collection of organ systems and biometrics.
Of course, we need our partialists. They provide important and complimentary skill sets to ours. But a family doctor should be at the center of every patient's care.
More family medicine as an antidote to the common sense blues? It couldn't hurt.
* I genuinely appreciate every one of you readers who, at some point, has taken the time to continue the conversation by responding to one of my posts. You all are the ones who truly keep things interesting around here. :)
** Please see entry from 3-1-11 for more about the "partialist" label.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI'm the health and wellness/Health Policy editor at Before It's News. Our site is a People Powered news platform with over 2,500,000 visits a month and growing fast.
We would be honored if we could republish your Blog's RSS feed in our Health and wellness category. Our readers need to read what your blog has to say.
Syndicating to Before It's News is a terrific way spread the word and grow your audience. Many other organizations are using Before It's News to do just that. We can have your feed up and running in 24 hours. I just need you to reply with your permission to do so. Please include the full name and email of the person who will be attached to the account, and let me know the name you want on the account (most people have their name or their blog name).
You can also have any text and/or links you wish appended to the end or prepended to the beginning of each of your posts on Before It's News.
Just email me the text and links that you want at the beginning and/or ending of each post. If you know html you can send me that. If not, just send me the text and a link to your site. It should be around 200 characters or less (not including links).
You can, if you like, create a custom feed for Before It's News that includes multiple links back to your blog or web site. We only require that RSS feeds include full stories, not partial stories. We don't censor or edit work.
If you have any other blogs or websites you would like featured on before it's news, you can send the details for those feeds as well.
Thank you,
Gidon Belmaker
Editor, Before It's News
gidon@beforeitsnews.com
www.beforeitsnews.com
I definitely enjoying every little bit of it. It is a great website and nice share. I want to thank you. Good job! You guys do a great blog, and have some great contents. Keep up the good work. internal medicine doctor katy tx
ReplyDelete