There were several highlights from Day 1, including Mr. Gentry’s story and Regina Holliday’s, who both exhibited and it appears for years have shown a great courage in telling their stories. I am floored by their candor, their willingness, and the composure with which they share what happened to them, and what they have been able to do about it since.

But yesterday, the idea that stuck with me the whole time was ‘Premature Closure.’ I struggled with the idea and what it truly encompasses throughout the afternoon since the Lewis Blackburn story. To me, my initial thoughts were that it was similar to Anchoring Bias, where clinician hunker down on the initial working diagnosis and don’t properly consider alternative diagnoses. That’s something that I have seen time and time again as a physician trainee – medical school, Internal Medicine, and now GI. I know I have certainly been guilty… Continue reading →

Having recently finished reading ‘Why Hospitals Should Fly?,’ I cannot help but feel a lot of the initial skepticism that Will had when visiting the fictional St. Michael’s. It seems intuitive that a top-down approach to massive cultural change cannot be as strong as one that emerges from the frontlines. However, one of the concepts that I empathize with as a GI fellow and former Medicine resident is the amount of cultural inertia there can be in a hospital or a hospital system. That inertia is often either met with jadedness/frustration vs resign/burn-out by house staff who may feel that they have little influence or say in the matter.

Furthermore, as someone still in training, I have already witnessed or have been a part of medical errors, some small and some big. I have mistakenly written for the wrong medications or doses in the past, I have lost patients due… Continue reading →