Back in MY Day....

we recently launched an electronic (computerized) medical record system at my hospital. i know, i know, we are a bit behind the times. basically, instead of scribbling some illegible order that the unit secretary has to interpret and input into the computer system for the nurse to see and follow those instructions, now we just put our orders directly into the computer ourselves, and they go directly to the nurse's inbox. eventually, progress notes and everything will be on the computer. already, lab and radiology reports, vital signs, lots of stuff has been available exclusively on the computer, so this is just one more step to being paper-free.

there are a lot of positives to this. medication errors should be fewer, and any of us practitioners can access our patients' charts from any computer, which is convenient.

but, the system isn't very intuitive and a lot of people are grumbling. especially our, well, more seasoned physicians. one of my favorite surgeons is brilliant in the OR, but i doubt that he's ever sent an email. watching him attempt to input a simple order for tylenol is like watching a monkey try to do complex math.

things just change so quickly. in the 30 years this favorite MD of mine has been practicing, he went from a simple gall bladder resection taking 5 hours through a blurry, dark camera, cigarette smoke billowing through the halls of the hospital, and all the physicians being treated like gods, to a gall bladders taking 20 minutes, smoking not even being allowed on the hospital campus, and the docs being made to put their own damned orders in a complex computer system. ouch.

the other day i saw a nissan comercial for a remote car starter that uses your cell phone to start the car. for my generation, this makes some sense and doesn't seem all that frightening or sci-fi. but for older generations, this is straight out of the jetsons. it's just too bad that when you text your car to tell it to start, it doesn't fly to greet you at your front door. maybe that's next. :)

A Funny Thing Happened On My Way Into Work...

so, i see weird stuff every day at the hospital. it's just the nature of working with people, i think. people are weird.

yesterday, i saw flesh eating bacteria taking over some poor sap's entire backside before they bothered to come in to get it checked out.

today, i saw an RV parked outside the hospital in the employee parking lot and could totally see inside to some lady blow drying her hair!

what the what?

like i said. people are weird.