It's time to update the physical exam

--------------------------------------------------------------- Here are the stories you missed on KevinMD. Thank you for your continuing readership. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsors [Survey results]: Mobility is the future of health care communications, though the particulars of that future remain in flux. Now in its fifth year, Spok's annual Mobility in Healthcare Survey is starting to reveal some longer-term trends in addition to annual snapshots. [Get the results 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. There are vital lessons to be learned from studying [why doctors get sued] -- lessons that can help prevent future claims. It’s all part of [taking the mal out of malpractice insurance]. [Video]: Hear from University of Utah Health Care's CIO and CMIO on communications and patient care. [Watch the video]. --------------------------------------------------------------- KevinMD Today: Nov. 21, 2016 [What this physician learned from Pantsuit Nation] A few months before election day, a grassroots group was created on Facebook called Pantsuit Nation. As the name probably implies, it was a group for Clinton supporters, where we shared our positivity about Hillary Clinton as a candidate and offered endless empowering stories about why we were voting for her. The group was secret, […] [This physician voted for Donald Trump. Here’s why.] I am writing why I as a physician voted for Donald Trump for president. This election has caused such outcry that I hesitate to put my name. I want to also say that I am a female physician. I feel that I need to express why I voted the way that I did. I am […] [What you think is wrong: Real men cry] We’ve come a long way from the 1940s and 1950s when men didn’t cry — not when they stubbed a toe or came back from the war and certainly not in front of strangers. In the last 20-plus years, we have seen a loosening up of the “stiff upper lip,” and we now see men […] [It’s time to update the physical exam] In the technology-thick landscape of modern health care, the physical exam remains in a backwoods. Sure, there have been advances — blood-pressure cuffs, for example, now inflate themselves — but on the whole, the exam has barely changed in the past century. Patients still open up and say “ah,” take deep breaths and gaze at […] [Sharing your personal health data? Don’t be scared!] I recently had the opportunity to join Boston news media veteran, Dan Rea, on his AM radio program, Nightside with Dan Rea. It was a one-hour call-in program and an eye-opening experience for me. Dan and I chatted about connected health and how it can truly disrupt care delivery and put the individual at the […] [There’s something missing in the doctors vs. AI debate] Over the past two days, listening to separate podcasts, I have heard the same story and now have a better understanding of artificial intelligence. A Freakonomics podcast — The Future (Probably) Isn’t as Scary as You Think: And in general, what’s happened in the past couple of years is the best chess player on this […] [Leave my patients’ health data alone!] The patient looked angry and I felt his frustration. His voice was rising, “Why is the chart 54 pages long? My son has only been here five times!” In the olden, pre-electronic health record days, chances are the chart would most likely have been less than 10 pages. However, since the government takeover of medical […] [People who aren’t “pill people”: What do they mean?] “I’m not really a pill person.” “I was never one for all those pills.” “I don’t really like taking those pills.” “I’m not really into taking pills.” As a doctor, I hear some version of this phrase every day. It’s almost accusatory, like “Hey, Doc — don’t even think about pushing all those pills on […] [Why I’m a doctor: Life-changing stories from med students] I am a professor of family medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School. During their third and fourth years, students must complete a four-week clerkship in family medicine. The clerkship includes a “significant-event reflection” project, in which students discuss patient encounters that they’ve found especially meaningful. Over nearly a decade as a facilitator for […] [The moment my passion for clinical care was reaffirmed] “Medicine Purple is now rounding at Room 202.” The announcement rang throughout the hallways on the lower pavilion. It was an announcement I had heard many times before, but this time it was quite different. As I glanced in the upper right-hand corner of the electronic medical record of my first patient, the following […] [Are doctors the new drug dealers?] I have written about pain medicine, previously on this blog, and it generated some spirited responses. Let me be clear that I am completely against all forms of pain, whether foreign or domestic, physical, spiritual, psychic or even phantom. The medical profession has superb tools to combat and relieve pain, and physicians should utilize them, […] [All patient lives matter] She is tall, thin and wears torn jeans like a mannequin. A silky top flows around her, masking the thin torso, the exposed ribs. Her hair is long, fine and the ends are perfect. Her face is smooth, drawn, a bit careworn, but that is why she is here. She carries herself with an aristocratic […] [MKSAP: 34-year-old man with progressive left knee pain] Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 34-year-old man is evaluated for progressive left knee pain. The pain causes difficulty with his work as a mail carrier, particularly when walking. His occupation does not require repetitive bending. He played football in college and experienced left knee trauma […] [A revolution is needed to fix what’s wrong with EMRs] During the Q&A period after a presentation I gave recently on understanding and preventing physician burnout, a physician in the audience voiced her vehement objections to the current electronic health record (EHR) with a simple statement: “We need a revolution.” In a few words, she described her frustrations with the EHR. “It is meaningless — […] [Patients are not fast food. Stop treating them that way.] I had never heard the term “throughput” before a meeting at our hospital two years ago. It was used to discuss how the emergency department (ED) could yield greater profits by faster patient turnover. Coordinating various duties (including intake, admitting, and cleaning staff; lab and radiology; nurses and doctors) patients could be shuttled into and […] [Why physicians need to organize] In my previous post, “Have physicians finally joined the working class,” I discussed the changes in the health care system regarding physicians roles in these systems. In this post, I propose two strategies that could help physicians regain some influence over their work and to participate fully not just in the execution of strategy from […] [The exam room post-election] It’s Wednesday, the day after the election. I spent the previous night clicking from one website to another, trying to find someone who was refuting what the others said was true. And when it became inevitable, I held my infant twin boys and cried. Now I’m in front of my exam room, walking in […] --------------------------------------------------------------- [Follow on Facebook] | [Twitter] --------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the KevinMD e-newsletter. If a friend sent you this email and you want to subscribe, go to [KevinMD]. --------------------------------------------------------------- 173 Daniel Webster Highway Nashua, New Hampshire 03062 [Unsubscribe] | [Change Subscriber Options]