Quote of the day:
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. - Peter De Vries
By now most readers who come to my blog realize they "don't always get what you waahnt" (Mick Jaeger), and " you can't get noosaatisfaaction". You try and you try....but. You probably get my drift here.
When I think about today's medical practice I often drift off into days long gone by, the Doobie Brothers, Chambers Brothers, amongst others. Perhaps I like the fantasia of it all....much more pleasant than the daily self importance of dealing with absolute garbage in my daily practice. The good thing is almost all of it is automatic on my part. My favorite thing is now listening to my patients , not so much about their disease state, but about their lives. I usually can figure out what is going on just by listening to their history. There are large parts of my practice that are mechanistic and technical. I am constantly amazed at the people living in this small city of about 60,000 just south of Riverside.
- I have been given several books from patients who detailed their lives in concentration camps, who escaped Hungary in the 1950s during the "Hungarian Revolution". In California it is fairly easy to start off after your history with a "so where are you from".
Far more interesting than looking at a computer screen is drawing out the patient and his(her) concern and how his disease affects his life, work, hobbies....and his "family".
Although there may be an upside in the transition of digitizing the medical record in an EMR, it will require someone to input data, and checking off boxes does not quite convey history and/or physical findings precisely.
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