Overheard in the ED: Patient: If I get admitted and I need open heart surgery will they take them (breast implants) out? Nurse: I don’t think so but, let me ask your doctor. Reader: I was the doctor.

Being from Ohio, and having an Ohio number, while living in Texas has got to be the worst combo for political ad bombardment.

Got tired of Trump re-runs playing in the doctors lounge so decided to switch it up.

I have come to the conclusion that the true function of AI is to foil any and all attempts to get a solution to a problem when tryin to call a business with a customer service issue.

Home alone in this era of streaming, video games, door dash, etc??? And I'm 14? Would've been a dream come true for me lol.

CURED OF SICKLE CELL DISEASE Now THAT'S science! No ivermectin in sight

Bro, this is a feature in Epic and people must have forgot, patients used to complain they didn’t receive their results fast enough

In Defense of Medical School Grades With residency application season getting underway, I've been thinking a lot about medical school grades, and why I wish we'd bring them back. As someone who reviews applications and interviews candidates for residency, I feel that we’re doing a disservice to students by removing all comparative performance benchmarks from residency applications. First it was preclinical grades, which admittedly makes sense, as performance in preclinical biochemistry is probably not a reliable predictor of residency performance. But then it was Step 1 scores. The purported reason was to reduce medical student stress — an aim I whole-heartedly support — but that simply kicked the evaluative can down the road to Step 2. When Step 1 was scored, if a student did not do as well as they hoped, they had a second opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of medical material on Step 2. With pass/fail Step 1, students only have one shot to showcase their abilities in an objective, comparative way. Since COVID, the new trend has been removing clinical clerkship grades. In lieu of a traditional transcript, schools produce lengthy Dean’s Letters that contain summaries of and excerpts from students’ clerkship evaluations. While the theory is that this allows for a more holistic review, clerkship evaluations are subject to the same linguistic arms race that plagues letters of recommendation. If every student is “excellent” or “outstanding,” and there is no grade to provide a more objective, comparative assessment, it is nearly impossible for an application reviewer to determine how a student actually performed in medical school. This concern over the purge of comparative metrics in residency applications also applies to schools that have grades but fail to use them in a meaningful manner. If an applicant receives all honors on their clinical clerkships, but the grade distribution for the school shows that 80-90% of students receive honors, I’m not sure how to assess that students performance — all I know is they weren’t in the bottom 10% of their class, which isn’t particularly helpful when trying to distinguish between many impressive, immensely qualified applicants. I’m all for reducing student stress and encouraging a more comprehensive approach to residency application review, but those efforts may be hurting medical students in the long run. Without more objective tools, I fear reviewers will focus on other, less meaningful heuristics, like the prestige of the applicant’s medical school or college. Utilizing more comparative metrics would be a win-win — applications would be easier to review residencies and medical students would have more opportunities to clearly demonstrate their academic achievement.

Don’t confuse YOUR ChatGPT with MY OpenEvidence

“Well what’s wrong with me?” Hot take but, I don’t believe that the primary function of the ED is to tell you what’s wrong with you. The ED is for telling you what’s NOT wrong with you AND to identify any emergency (or potential) that may arise.

one of the primary friction points of healthcare is that some people come to the hospital thinking it's gonna be like a wacky hotel when it's actually more like being trapped inside the DMV

you’ve never met at PGY-1 pre-rounding at 6 am

By far my favorite colleagues to have in the ED are ex military. Always have hella tricks and never flustered.

Nothing says “Welcome to work” like a code brown… on the stretcher… in triage. Even my regulars cleared out lol

pulmonary embolism expert here… you “having a hard time believing” is not how science works

Emergency medicine is a PHYSICIAN specialty. Paramedics provide emergency medical care via EMS protocols, but they do not work in “emergency medicine.” APNPs may provide emergency care. But, they do not practice emergency “medicine”; they are licensed in the field of nursing.