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jecartwright623 's review for:
When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error
by Danielle Ofri
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.