My 2 year "sabbatical" started a week ago. It has not, so far, involved much sleeping late or eating bon bons, which is fine, I guess. I am working several 24 hour shifts this month for our local hospital, covering the "hospitalist" service. This involves care of hospitalized patients who have no primary doctor or whose primary doctor is unable to take care of them in the hospital. Some of these patients are critically ill, some have fallen through the cracks of our health care system and others have doctors who choose to do only outpatient or specialty practices. In some communities, especially in big cities, doctors who have office practices are just too busy to be available to their patients at the odd times that hospital medicine requires and so nearly all of the patients in the hospital belong to designated hospitalists. In our community, most of the doctors do at least some hospital medicine, which is good for continuity of care. After quitting my primary c...
The cost of health care in the US is higher than anywhere else in the world, and yet we are not healthier than our peer nations. In fact, in terms of such measures as infant mortality and life span, we don't measure up. Why is this? Many people involved in providing or receiving care have some pretty good ideas about what costs so much, and what we can do to reduce costs and improve quality. Sharing these stories is an important step in creating affordable universal health care.