Laughter is the sound of resiliency / Welcome to McMedicine, may I please take your order?

--------------------------------------------------------------- Here are the stories you missed on KevinMD. Thank you for your continuing readership. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsors [8 reasons why secure texting alone is not enough]. Secure texting is important, but communication needs in health care have evolved well beyond just texting. Staff need information from dozens of systems to deliver excellent, timely patient care. [Get the eBrief now]. [Is your hospital communication system trapped in the dark ages?] Just like a medieval page boy, pagers are annoying and inefficient. This leads to delayed patient care, frustrated providers, and potential HIPAA breaches. Learn why you need to ditch your [Page Boy] today. Cybersecurity alert: HHS has ruled that if your practice is hit with ransomware, the HIPAA burden now falls on you. [This is what you must know to protect yourself]. Make sure you’re also [taking steps to prevent an attack]! [Infographic]: Learn why hospitals seek to integrate pagers into their workflows and secure communications along with smartphone for maximum benefit and coverage. [View the infographic]. --------------------------------------------------------------- KevinMD Today: Aug. 25, 2016 [Laughter? That’s the sound of resiliency you hear.] Sometimes, the loudest sounds I hear in the emergency department are laughter. It may seem irresponsible. It may seem discordant. It may seem callous. To me, it is the sound of survival. It is the sound of resiliency. It is the sound of making it through the day. My father was at work when he […] [Welcome to McMedicine, may I please take your order?] A.J. Smith, a pseudonym of course, walked into my office today, unhappily. Most of her topical medications for acne caused too much irritation. The ones that didn’t, weren’t working. The doxycycline caused photosensitivity in the past. But her friend’s dermatologist gave her isotretinoin, better known as Accutane, and she completely cleared. As such, that’s what […] [A physician’s letter to his younger self] To my younger self, I remember how excited you were when you finally settled on medicine as the thing that you wanted to do as a career in your junior year of college. I remember all the questions you had about what the process entailed since no one in your family had undertaken this journey […] [How much thought do you give to health literacy?] It’s Friday afternoon at 4 p.m., and Mr. Anderson walks into my endoscopy suite as the last patient of the day. He’s a 65-year-old publicly-insured male who presents for a screening colonoscopy. He’s 20 minutes late, because he went to registration in the surgery department. He is convinced “looking for cancer” requires surgery. In triage, […] [Impossible choices: The haunting decisions patients and doctors face] I was home free: in my final year of medical school, with one last rotation to finish. I had matched into a residency in obstetrics. The tsunami of stress that loomed over the past year — choosing a specialty, interviewing all over the country, waiting for the life-altering but fickle match — had passed. I […] [The 6 degrees of patient-physician separation] The federal government has been trying to control the health of citizens for nearly a century, increasingly separating patients and their physicians. WWII wage controls firmly established health insurance as an employee “benefit” in lieu of salary. This gave the employer power to choose coverage based on its needs, not the employee’s: the first degree […] [Solve our health care problems by conveying more love] Many recent articles, blogs, and presentations have focused on what American health care lacks and what additional skills health care professionals should adopt to “fix” our “broken” system. Third-party payers and health care organizations tend to promote the need for quality improvement and economic measures, while clinicians grapple with their transition to less-autonomous employees, noting […] [This is my life with chronic illness. Tell me yours.] “Get well soon!” That’s a common saying. All of us have heard it. But what if you have an illness that you won’t ever get better from? The most horrible part of having a chronic illness is that it’s forever, or for a very long time. Unless your personal miracle comes, your illness will always […] [A piece of advice to those who want to disrupt health care] Living in the fine city of Boston, I am fortunate enough to be located right in the middle of a medical hub. A place that’s full of exciting new research, developments, and ideas. Working at the front line of hospital care, also with a keen interest in quality improvement, patient experience, and technology, I frequently […] [Doctor, you are not alone] 2:15 a.m., July 2, 1981. Its 83 degrees outside in a loud, humid Chicago night, but here the scrubbed air is chilled, dry, while white tiles reflect the occasional nurse, who appear and vanish, and the rhythmic sighs of the machines, gasping somewhere down empty halls, are occasionally interrupted by a frantic chime. My first […] [If you think doctors make too much money, think about this] Years ago on Cape Cod, my kids and I stumbled across a man who had spent the day creating a sand sculpture of a mermaid. It was an impressive piece of art. “How long did it take you to make it? ” we asked. While I can’t recall his precise words, the response was something […] [Young doctors can set themselves up to be financially free] “Z” and “S” were both hesitant skeptics from the start. Earlier this year, they’d signed up for an entrepreneurial class I taught. Z was a first-year medical student with a dream of having millions. S was his blonde-haired, model-type wife; ex-ballerina-come-cancer-survivor who wanted to help people with similar experiences. Before the course, she’d contemplated taking […] --------------------------------------------------------------- [Follow on Facebook] | [Twitter] --------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the KevinMD e-newsletter. 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