I haven’t blogged for awhile. I haven’t been inspired. Now I have just finished my notes for Friday. It was a busy day and I left the office before I had finished all my documentation. That happens often. I get home and I spend another hour finishing notes. This is the way it is with many doctors. We want the record to reflect something of the patient encounter. Too often, it is just documenting for reimbursement. It’s about checking all the boxes necessary to meet certain core measures. This article in The Annals of Internal Medicine’s section On Being a Doctor captured the sense of an older physician’s struggle to take care of patients while teaching what medicine used to be like.
On Being a Doctor |6 December 2016
Coeur d’Alene
Richard B. Weinberg, MD
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From Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Requests for Single Reprints: Richard B. Weinberg, MD, Wake Forest School of Medicine, One Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 27157; e-mail, [email protected].
Published: Ann Intern Med. 2016;165(11):822-823.
CC: diarrhea
HPI: loose stools x6 mo; 4-6x/day; (+) postprandial, (±) nocturnal; (−) heme, fever
PMH, FH: on chart
ROS: all other systems (−)
PEx: {normal template}
DDx: Diarrhea, infectious v osmotic v secretory
Plan: stool for GI pathogens, C. diff, lactoferrin, osm, lytes; CBC, CMP, celiac serology panel; colonoscopy w/Bx; trial of Cipro; diarrhea info sheet