“If you don’t sit at the table-you’ll probably be on the menu.” This sage advice came from one of my fellow PhD students at TWU and it has always resonated with me. If you think about it-this is all about communication and being willing to have the conversation. If you don’t participate-you may not like the outcome. Communication is so simple in some ways and so complex in others-yet there is so much room for misunderstanding and assumptions.

Words are very powerful. It is amazing to think what they can do. They can motivate or devastate, persuade or dissuade, show emotion or authority. Careers, marriages, negotiations & contracts have been build or destroyed with words.  Words can represent a range of things…from promises & compliments to slander & abuse. This is why we need to use them carefully and deliberately.

Enter the healthcare profession. Communication… Continue reading →

Day 2 started much like Day 1. Once again we were shown a video which flies in the face of everything that we are taught to do as healthcare professionals: First do no harm. The video about Michael Skolnick’s story was like watching an impending train wreck but being powerless to stop it. So many lessons to learn here….

1-As much as we learn in text books,  patients and their symptoms will not fit into a nice little box-so you always need to be open to the possibility that you are wrong, a diagnosis may change and be willing to consider/ look for other answers. For example-I have seen strange presentations for appendicitis over my career that did not include the expected RLQ pain, fever & elevated WBC. One patient I had was actually having LLQ pain, fever and elevated WBC. I was thinking diverticulitis. No… Continue reading →

Today was a day of highs and lows.

We started the day with the Lewis Blackman story. It was a very sobering, raw look at what healthcare should not be. Everything that could go wrong did in this case. No one could see the forest for the trees. I felt sad as a provider, devastated as a parent and could not imagine the strength that Helen has to go on and share this with others.

The whole story reminded me of my mother in law (who had cancer). She had epigastric pain & went to the ER. She was told she was constipated from her pain meds-and they missed her massive MI. Mom walked into the ER but never walked out. She lived the rest of her days (2 months) in a nursing home since she could no longer care for herself due to the injury… Continue reading →