Inpatient Medicine, at least at the resident level, is all about discharging patients. The problem with medicine patients in the hospital is that there are just darn too many of them, and most of them have multiple problems that we'll never be able to cure completely. What we do then, while they are sick enough to be in the hospital, is to patch them up nicely, as quickly as possible, so that they get a bit better for us to send them out of the way. Many of the patients' problems don't have to be fixed "in-house". In fact, sometimes they can't be fixed in the hospital (like controlling a diabetic patient's blood sugar). My favorite phrase to patients this month has been, "this can be followed up as an outpatient." To this effect, isn't inpatient medicine just an extension of emergency medicine?
More patients means more work for the residents, so it is only logical that we set "getting rid of our patients" as our primary goal. We pride ourselves when we brought our patient list down to 1 page (or even half a page); I get a "good job" compliment from my senior when I successfully discharged a patient (especially one who has been here for a long time).
We did bring our patient list down to less than 1 page - our lowest census since I started the rotation. Just in time for our anticipated busy call night tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment