Dr. Doe has been the medical director of his democratic group’s only contract for 27 years. He was board certified in family medicine but successfully took the ABEM exam and has maintained his board certification. He receives a substantial stipend from both the hospital and his group for filling this role but he has scheduled himself full-time clinically for the last three years because the group is chronically short-staffed.

In a democratic emergency medicine group, there are many ways to arrive at decisions, from command-and-control to consensus-building. What works best will depend on the character of your group, and what you hope to achieve.

A bunch of things irritate me about the way we’re treated in the emergency department. Near the top is that we’re held accountable for everything but on call docs aren’t. I just hate it when I want to admit a patient but the on call doc doesn’t, so over the years I kept a list of patients I admitted--so called “soft” admissions that the on call doc wanted to send home--and found out what happened to them.

It is difficult to enforce in others what you yourself don’t possess. My husband and I both enjoy food from all levels of the food pyramid but lack the interest and the time to prepare them. We both eat meals on the go on a daily basis, and are rarely at home at the same time to sit down for a meal. And then comes baby…

Had I known that one day my sweet innocent daughter would turn into a psychiatric patient, I would have taken Haldol instead of prenatal vitamins during my pregnancy. I had been forewarned by fellow parents, but assumed there was no way MY child would succumb to such behavior. Then at 15 months, my little monster reared her curly haired, bi-polar little head.

How can an ED solve a complex, systemic healthcare problem like patient satisfaction? They can sing about it, of course.
This gem of a video comes courtesy of the SVH emergency department in Pittsburgh. Enjoy.

A great emergency physician is an expert in the atypical, the unstable, and the unexpected. A great parent, however, sometimes requires little more than common sense. For instance, don’t drop your baby in the sink.

If you’ve ever worked a night shift (or come in early for a day shift), you know that there is an increased incidence of cardiovascular catastrophes such as stroke and MI in the morning hours (approximately 6 AM to noon).

Emergency physicians, with their long shifts worked entirely indoors, could be at a risk of Vitamin D deficiency. This might not seem like a big deal, but it has been linked to more health risks than you realize.