“You don’t get what you deserve; you get what you negotiate.”

This is a great attitude to bring to meetings about job compensation. It is not an attitude that we should expect of our patients. We learned a lot about negotiation today. Unfortunately, we learned that patients need to know how to negotiate for their own well-being within our current healthcare system or risk an adverse event. That is unacceptable. As healthcare professionals, WE are our patients’ advocates. WE do their negotiations for them. They should not ever have to negotiate against us; they should negotiate with us as a team working toward a common goal.

That’s what they deserve.

Today I visited Arlington Cemetery. I saw the rows of white tombstones surround The Eternal Flame. I experienced the hallow nature of the hillside. I felt the awe of sacrifice. As I reflected later on, I began to recognize the similarities between the emotions stirred by my visit today and the goals I strive to fulfill with a career in medicine.

Make no mistake: I am not here to insinuate doctors and soldiers are equal. They are not. Doctors are compensated handsomely for a job that very rarely proves fatal to us. Soldiers can say the exact opposite. They deserve the enshrinement of Arlington cemetery. However, the resemblance of our respective professions’ goals are striking. At their core they both are altruistic services provided for the betterment of societies we believe in protecting. One of the many differences between them though is that soldiers often know when they win or… Continue reading →

As I sat down to ponder what to write for this blog post, a thousand things seemed to pop up in my mind. Each lesson learned from our meetings, each stop-in-your-tracks quote, each incredible person I met today. I wandered into a forest today, but all I could seem to think about were the lovely trees. Perspective is a grand hand to hold though. As I think through the large themes and broad strokes of the picture painted today, I keep coming back to context. I have studied large-scale databases on preventable medical errors. I have had loved ones experience firsthand the chilling effects of preventable medical errors. Heck, I’ve personally been on both sides of small preventable medical errors at one point or another. How do they happen? Why do we feel like they’ll always happen? What specific systemic problems are in need of proper solutions? Where is the… Continue reading →