healthcare rant

fact: on average, every 2 minutes a doctor spends with a patient, they spend 25 minutes documenting

this morning, i walked into my patients 'room' [curtain...] and asked him how he was doing. then i said "do you know what is going on, has anyone talked to you about the plan."

nope, i have no idea what is happening. i tried to explain as best as i could...but then i had to go to finish documenting his progress note before rounds started.

later in the day, instead of explaining what is going on and how we are helping, i spent about 2 hours writing transfer paperwork for my patient. by the time i was done, i was so tired i spent maybe 10 minutes with him and then left for the day.

our medical system is ridiculous.

instead of using time wisely, talking to the patient, counseling them, explaining what they can do to help themselves...we end up having a ton of paperwork and documentation to do in order to legally protect ourselves from lawyers. thus, we never educate the patient well enough and they return again and again for things that can be prevented.

our medical system is ridiculous.