The ‘Medicine and Beyond’ Category

Well in short everything you have heard about working the US is true. They work long hours, the pay is average but livable, days off and holidays are not so many and they like ordering tests. When talking to international medical graduates coming to the US about their reason for coming, the answer is universal answer – training. There is a culture of teaching and learning. Every day there is one to four hours of teaching, rotations are one month long to give more exposure in a condense program length. Services are intern-led with senior residents providing supervision along with Attendings (consultants). The health system is a story of two tales. On one hand you have the largest most specialized hospitals in the world offering the latest procedures and opportunities for cutting edge research. Then on other end there are vast amount of Americans with no insurance and the plight of the homeless and destitute is one of the most depressing things to watch in this land of excess.

The significant issue of NZ’s doctor shortage is certainly not new, but it has recently achieved a reasonable level of media coverage. In particular, I watched with interest the short Sunday evening documentary that examined NZ’s ongoing recruitment and retention issues.
A couple of things struck me. Firstly, whilst we heard from consultants, senior registrars, a [...]

It goes without saying that many things are connected. We often talk about the six degrees of separation principle and this holds true for many of us in many parts of our lives…
It struck me however, that there are plenty of ‘networks’ at play within a healthcare setting. For example – we all form part [...]

Get penalized for poor care – Accountable Care
Should doctors be paid as per patient outcomes:

$3000 fee = a patient has a complication-free appendicectomy and discharged after 3 days hospital stay.
$2000 penalty = patient has surgical complication requiring readmission for wound infection requiring IV antibiotics.

This is a marked shift from current systems and on the surface [...]

A friend of mine is currently starting along the long path of the medical school application process. She tells me that she has dreamt of becoming a doctor ever since she was in primary school, and that her passion for the profession has only grown over the years. We have had many discussions about life [...]

We were in a foreign European city a few weeks ago and were involved in assisting in a medical emergency. The experience highlighted a key issue for me and one that we often take for granted in the workplace… the ability to communicate with patients and other health professionals!

Our patient was French and was travelling with a French friend, the security assistants at the site we were visiting spoke broken English, but were Dutch, as were the ambulance crew of course when they arrived. Another health professional on the scene was Spanish…..