a superhuman occupation
.......Docs of Steel! Faster than a speeding bullet, yet with no stone left unturned. Paperwork? Bring it on!... As we draw our capes around us and prepare to plunge into the next pit of human suffering, we pause only to check our schedules, to ensure that productivity remains on target. Juggling BlackBerries, cell phones, electronic medical records, notes from specialists, lab results, patient phone calls, referrals, radiology requests, beepers, handheld formularies, patient-satisfaction surveys, colour-coded preferred-drug charts from insurers, and quality report cards from HMOs, we forge on, as our patients wait, shivering expectantly... The superhuman demands of our specialty have either morphed us into steely-eyed combatants or reduced us to blithering, overwhelmed, white-coated globs of jelly. We now practice triage medicine - surrendering time-honoured bedside roles to hospitalists; slicing face time with patients; retreating to administrative roles; appending MBA, Esq., or MPH to our names to shield us from the line of fire.
How Doctors Think
Jerome Groopman, MD
