*Talk to the nurses every day- they are your teachers too. seriously!
*Help your residents- you're an important asset to them, trust me...especially to our new interns who don't know where the bathrooms are or where to get coffee. They need you a lot right now.
*Listen to your patient- they have the clues you need. Ask them what questions do you have and what matters to them?
*Teach your patients every day. Many of our patients might not know their plan for the day or why they are in the hospital so it's good to overcommunicate!
*Advocate for improving quality, safety and value? Does your team need labs? every day? Does your patient need a Foley catheter or telemetry? Ask yourself about the things we do for no reason.
*As confusing as it is moving from rotation to rotation and attending to attending, don't forget to cherish the front row seat to the lives and health issues of patients you may not see again. Delivering a baby or sewing up a patient in the OR- things I did as an MS3 I remember!
*Remember each other. Medicine is a collaboration and not a competition and humans are our most precious resource. While the focus is on patients, it can feel less on you...make sure you look out for each other. After all, it's your peers you will always remember most.
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Inspired by @tropical_toxic cover art @TIME assignments, @sara_serritella and I are sharing their work here w/permission.
Students could choose any misinformation to debunk. While some chose COVID19, not all did! They also specified their audience. 2/x
📣ATTENTION VACCINE HUNTERS:
After weeks, I got lucky and got the shot for a high risk 1b senior! NOT easy so sharing long🧵w tips from multiple sources while looking in 2 states (Maryland & Illinois) AND on national drugstore websites. #ThisIsOurShot#vaccinehunters
First, does where you get care have it? If no-this is a big inequity. If yes, make sure your online portal is active. While places prioritize their patients, some do say supply limited so keep looking.
KEY🔑sign up for any and all registrations you can. wbez.org/stories/black-…
Next, do you live in a place with an aggregator like Chicago @zocdoc which shows where vaccine available? Great if you do. But does it have all sites? Chicago’s missed some so I use @IMPACT4HC links curated by @halleh13 BOOKMARK LINKS! CHECK MANY TIMES/DAY impact4hc.com/vaccine-genera…
As someone who has studied healthcare handoffs for a while, I can’t stop thinking about the Presidential one coming up. I see I’m not the only one. But this is not like any handoff. My nerdy 🧵 #MedTwitter#Inauguration2021
Handoffs come in many flavors in medicine. In general, the highest risk handoffs are when the patient is really sick and the handoff is permanent and not temporary. So in some ways, yes has elements of a risky handoff. America is definitely sick and the handoff is permanent.
Ideal handoffs are a transfer of content and a transfer of professional responsibility. The goal of content transfer: to achieve a shared mental model or shared vision of the patient. Professional responsibility usu= does receiver accept? Now it’s been will sender relinquish?
This paper is the result of a survey we did on social media in Feb-Mar 2019 so pre pandemic. We posted a @Bitly link daily on our accounts to track engagement. 464 completed our survey of 1103 views (42%).
~1 in 4 physicians on social media reported being attacked. No diff by gender. Most common reason: advocacy on vaccines & other public health issues like gun control. Attacks on race & religion too. Reports of employers being called, getting doxxed, and even death threats.
Despite positive vaccine news, with record high #COVID19 hospitalizations this past week:
National Academy of Medicine & 8 national orgs call for "immediate action to save lives and fairly allocate limited resources" on CRISIS STANDARDS OF CARE.
🧵
"The crisis is now..Hospitals across most of the US are experiencing alarmingly high surges in #COVID19 patients..many ICUs across the country are already over capacity and many more will be so in the coming weeks." 2/x #medtwitter#nursetwitter
"We have reached a point in the crisis at which critical decisions must be made in order to do the most good possible for the largest number of people with limited resources. These decisions effectively signal a shift from conventional to crisis standards of care." 3/x
I was watching some news stories this week featuring hospital leaders and healthcare workers talking about how things are in surge states. Reporter always asked if they were 'overwhelmed' and did 'they have beds/staff?"
Sadly, you won't get the real answer this way.
THREAD
The thing is that hospital leaders can't go on TV and scare people with how bad things are because of the real concern that patients who are indeed sick won't come in leading to more deaths. They also are managing concerns of risk management and reputation/financial damage too.
So they may say something like "our staff are doing our best" or I am "so proud of our teams" This is true! Everyone IS trying their best.
But please know that's not a business as usual signal.
"everyone is doing their best" is code for "yes s*(& hitting the fan but we trying"