“Her placenta had weakened and she’d had a cesarean, though not quickly enough. The doctor explained that these things happen. He smiled in the kindest way it was possible to smile at people known only professionally. Shoba would be back on her feet in a few weeks. There was nothing to indicate that she would not be able to have children in the future.”
(more…)
I was delighted to see the News and Perspectives piece in this month’s Annals of Emergency Medicine about “Social Media and Physician Learning” (free PDF). I had totally forgotten that Jan Greene, the author, had called to talk with me several months ago. In the piece, she discusses many of the issues with which I struggle:
Here are some noteworthy quotes:
Once upon a time nurses were all women in hats and white skirts and doctors were readily identifiable by their formal dress, and deep, masculine voices. Changes in demographics, fashion and the health care teams have shattered these stereotypes. In doing so, it has become more difficult for our patients and fellow practitioners to identify the diverse members of a modern health care team.
This week we present the case of Jenny and Justin: a couple of residents who are struggling with the assumptions of their patients and colleagues that result from their youthful looks and – in Jenny’s case – gender.
Dear Program Directors,
I understand how tough it can be to come up with quality resident education to fulfill educational requirements on a weekly basis all year around. For most programs that is approximately 5 hours of conference material, once a week, pretty much every week of the year. That equals 260 hours of educational material that needs to be high yield, engaging, and entertaining enough to hold the attention of the millennial generation. This is an especially daunting task if tackled alone. So don’t do this alone! Start a program-wide Twitter account!
At the 2013 International EM Teaching Course yesterday, Dr. Stacey Poznanski and I gave a workshop on “Powerpoint Resuscitation” to address all the widespread pitfalls which cause “death by powerpoint”. Here are the winners from the workshop competition, illustrating great examples of the coherence, redundancy, and multimedia principles that we reviewed. The slide examples are in pairs in a before-workshop and after-workshop format. Amazing what star educators can get done in a 60 minute workshop!
Coincidence can be very fortuitous. How exciting was it to have Shawn Achor deliver his keynote address about the Happiness Advantage at ACEP this past week? Three days after our Book Club Review was released? Best part of it all – none of it was planned. That definitely was a ‘happy coincidence’. :D
Though I was not there, my Twitter feed lit up with Happiness resounding from ACEP on that first day. It seems his message resounded with many in the audience.
Happiness at work. If you’re like so many of the seasoned physicians in my life, this might seem like an oxymoron. But that’s exactly what Shawn Achor suggests can be your status quo. The old axiom that if you are successful you will become happier is out-dated and, as it turns out, not evidence-based. It seems like many things in medicine, we may have had it backwards. Maybe, he suggests, if you find a way to make yourself happier – you’ll actually be a better doctor…
