A difficult situation faced in the emergency department

--------------------------------------------------------------- Here are the stories you missed on KevinMD. Thank you for your continuing readership. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsors In what ways can technology enhance the provider experience and improve patient safety, outcomes, and satisfaction? We’ve detailed 17 ways in this eBrief. [Read now](. Health care providers are not immune from the growing number of reported incidents of alleged sexual harassment in the workplace. [Check out these tips]( on how to protect physician practices from sexual harassment lawsuits. Just 49% of patients [stay with their doctor for at least five years](. Learn the [true cost]( of patients switching doctors and how does that affect your practice. [New video]( See how this hospital cut Code Blue response times by 50%. [Watch now](. Each extra log-on can add up to thousands of hours of lost time that could be spent with your patients, improving your overall quality of care. [Learn more about EHR integration]( with Imprivata. --------------------------------------------------------------- KevinMD Plus: Jul 5, 2018 [A difficult situation a resident faced in the emergency department]( As I begin my overnight pediatric emergency department shift, there is one patient waiting to be seen: “Six-year-old male with autism, alleged sexual assault.” In year one of my pediatrics residency, I have not yet managed a sexual assault case, it is time to learn. I sign up to see the patient and move to […] [The caregiver’s mantra: doing the best I can]( If one more person tells me to be sure to take care of myself, I’m going to bury my face in a pillow and scream. “Go for a walk, take a vacation,” they advise. I know they’re trying to help, but really? Giving me one more thing to do? Oh well, they’re just doing the […] [The difference between care and service is significant]( My father, recently retired, spent over 40 years in private practice. After dinner, he would sift through piles of paper charts and call patients with their lab results. As a grade schooler, what impressed me the most was that he knew many of his patient’s phone numbers by heart. Of course, this was in the […] [5 ways to show empathy in medicine]( As medical professionals we often see people at their worst: battered and broken, bothered and in pain, no make-up, bad hair day, naked and too ill to even care about modesty. At those critical moments, in our patients’ hour of desperation, they hand over their lives to us … and the lives of their family. […] [Education as an intervention for the chronic pain epidemic]( A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com. Chronic pain is a silent epidemic Chronic pain is a significant public health burden, but one that is not talked about enough. In 2011, the Institute of Medicine estimated that approximately 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. But chronic pain is not just a […] [Treating mental illness: Quality of life matters]( Quality of life matters. This straightforward assertion gets complicated when we discuss the treatment of depression. Depression is common, part of a family doctor’s daily schedule; it can affect anyone, although certain groups are at higher risk. There have been many hypotheses as to why we as a species are susceptible to depression (and its […] [Attending time: That’s just a myth]( One of the great myths amongst residents is that once they become attendings, they’ll have so much more free time. I’ll never work this much again, they think. This is the most time-intensive phase of life, and everything after residency is easy in comparison. Unfortunately, they are usually wrong. Statistically, working about the same number […] [A physician’s personal experience with gun violence]( Like many of us, I have been struggling to reconcile my love for everything good about this country with the senseless gun violence that terrorizes us today. In the wake of each shooting, I vow to do more — to speak up as a surgeon, as a former victim of gun violence and simply as [… [How Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade could change mental health]( Many people in our country, or I should say in this world, have been shocked and devastated by recent celebrity suicides. Many wonder how can someone whose life looks so perfect be depressed? Well, people are starting to recognize that anyone, no matter how successful, how rich or how attractive can experience severe depression. Many […] [A pediatrician’s healing spirit: treating depressed, anxious, and suicidal teens]( I had not one, but two suicidal teen patients today. This is only one day after I had an eight-year-old suicidal patient come to see me. Three weeks ago, a 17-year-old female walked in, she had hung herself in her closet one month earlier — saved only by the timely breaking of the crossbar of […] [A doctor’s apology can go a long way]( I came across a letter I wrote to a patient while rummaging through some old files on my computer. I flashbacked to what triggered this: a response to a letter she had sent me, one that was, shall we say, extremely unflattering and quite scathing in the way she described me and our last encounter. […] [Where has the loyalty in medicine gone?]( There are 168 hours in a week and 8,736 hours in a year. There are 10,080 minutes in a week, and 524,160 minutes in a year. Residents and fellows working in an academic environment often work close to, if not in large part, more than 80 hours a week, or 4,160 hours a year. 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