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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
A welcome primer into medical malpractice, mistakes, and how we respond to these.
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Ate this up so fast. I really appreciate the authors ability to reflect with pure honesty about their mistakes and the need for forthright medical practice. I also really enjoyed learning about the systemic problems and pressures that contribute to burnout, turnover, and mistakes in medical settings. Medical history/science is one of favorite genres, so I'm a bit biased, but if you like the the genre, I think you'll enjoy this. Some really touching/heartbreaking personal patient stories within.
I’m going to review this book before I even finish it. As a former medical office leader and laboratory leader who was victim to succumbing to the physician’s wants and needs, I found this book to be spot on with describing the ego and mindset of a doctor. However, I was taken aback at the blame transferred to the systems and processes when there was one major elephant in the room—why aren’t any of these physicians speaking to administrators about their concerns with system pitfalls? Why aren’t any leading initiatives to fix the problem rather than blame the system for lack of time, too many alerts, too many gaps?
I know the docs primary role is to care for the patient, but if they really, truly, deeply cared for the patient, they would form committees to fix over saturated alerts in the EMR and fix system errors with a doctor’s gentle hand involved. Their comeback to my suggestion would be that there isn’t enough time in the day and they should be taking care of patients instead of solving petty issues as I mentioned. They would say there aren’t enough docs to go around to work part time on patients and part time on system improvements. However, if you’ve ever applied to medical, which I have, you can see how selective the process is. If you wanted to save the world, why wouldn’t you be willing to train people with MCATs a little lower than that of a genius? Instead, you’ve cornered yourself to be an exclusive group of smart people and then have less of an army to save our dying souls. Weird. Like someone wants control without the responsibility.
As an employee of the hospital for over 15 years, I was taught to speak up when I saw errors or opportunities for improvement. It was expected of me in my measly, underpaid roles. The managers always said, “I can’t have eyes on everything, I rely on you.” Shouldn’t doctors be held to this as well? None of us are allowed to do the work of a doctor other than a doctor, so shouldn’t they have to speak up when they see something off? Shouldn’t they have to partake in QI projects and build a better world? Nah, they are too busy. We should leave them to the important work—killing the patient because us underlings built an ineffective EMR for them to work with.
Beautiful writing style though. I was engaged for all of it. Still am.
I know the docs primary role is to care for the patient, but if they really, truly, deeply cared for the patient, they would form committees to fix over saturated alerts in the EMR and fix system errors with a doctor’s gentle hand involved. Their comeback to my suggestion would be that there isn’t enough time in the day and they should be taking care of patients instead of solving petty issues as I mentioned. They would say there aren’t enough docs to go around to work part time on patients and part time on system improvements. However, if you’ve ever applied to medical, which I have, you can see how selective the process is. If you wanted to save the world, why wouldn’t you be willing to train people with MCATs a little lower than that of a genius? Instead, you’ve cornered yourself to be an exclusive group of smart people and then have less of an army to save our dying souls. Weird. Like someone wants control without the responsibility.
As an employee of the hospital for over 15 years, I was taught to speak up when I saw errors or opportunities for improvement. It was expected of me in my measly, underpaid roles. The managers always said, “I can’t have eyes on everything, I rely on you.” Shouldn’t doctors be held to this as well? None of us are allowed to do the work of a doctor other than a doctor, so shouldn’t they have to speak up when they see something off? Shouldn’t they have to partake in QI projects and build a better world? Nah, they are too busy. We should leave them to the important work—killing the patient because us underlings built an ineffective EMR for them to work with.
Beautiful writing style though. I was engaged for all of it. Still am.
Would only recommend to medical providers. I got the thesis in the first few pages and everything after that was elaboration on it. This might have worked as a book if Ofri had given us lots of patient examples and scenarios, but there are really only two in the whole book, which means there's little human content to make us care. Read The Beauty in Breaking or Do No Harm instead.
This was an ok read. I found the author much more engaging in the NPR interview that was the catalyst for my interest in this book. The case studies were absorbing but everything else in the book fell on the boring side. A caveat to this review is that I read the book while I had COVID and my powers of concentration were not what they normally are.
It felt like the majority of the book was the author complaining about all the systems that are in place at the hospital. It certainly stirs up a lot of questions about responsibility.
Danielle Ofri is one of the best writers on medicine for a non-medical audience. She's a great storyteller and really good at explaining complex things (or boring/banal things—like all the specific ways electronic medical records can hinder medical care by being incredibly annoying and not user friendly). I'm really put off by her bias about "obesity" which was really at the forefront in her last book—for me, it detracts from her credibility as a clinician and scientist.
I mean, this book was really stressful. The takeaway for me was all the ways that the medical system (mostly in the ways it's set up to be driven by profit) makes it difficult—culturally, structurally, logistically—for doctors to do good medicine. And how difficult it is to hold the systems accountable for their failures.
I mean, this book was really stressful. The takeaway for me was all the ways that the medical system (mostly in the ways it's set up to be driven by profit) makes it difficult—culturally, structurally, logistically—for doctors to do good medicine. And how difficult it is to hold the systems accountable for their failures.