The Direct Doctors Difference

OCTOBER 21, 2021

In 2019 we discussed the basics of why patients wait a long time to hear back, get through on the phone lines, or be seen with a primary care doctor. We’ve heard of patients quoted a six to twelve month wait period before they can see a doctor as a new patient! In Rhode Island, the wait continues to be much longer.

Primary Care 52

Primary Care Primary Care Doctor PCP PCP 52

GeriPal

DECEMBER 8, 2022

Clinicians “catching” patient life stories. . Our patients aren’t “the 76 year old with heart failure in room 202,” as Heather Coats astutely noted. Storytelling Helps Hospital Staff Discover The Person Within The Patient. Eric’s blog post on Dignity Therapy from 2011. Because that really is what this is about.

Patient-Centered 115

Patient-Centered Illness Healthcare IT 115

GeriPal

APRIL 14, 2022

Adapting Palliative Care Skills to Provide Substance Use Disorder Treatment to Patients With Serious Illness . So I have thought about this for months, maybe years since your 2016, cycle blog, but we have picked Under Pressure by David Bowie and Queen. Learn about using the low dose buprenorphine patch: . Eric: And why Under Pressure.

Illness 102

Illness Patient-Centered IT Patients 102

GeriPal

DECEMBER 15, 2022

Along the way we address: Is this degree of slowed cognitive decline meaningful to patients or care partners? Eric: So patient narrative storytelling, independent of what we call it, I’d like to turn to both of you and just how you got interested in this as a subject. She was a heart failure patient.

IT 105

IT Patient-Centered Healthcare Illness 105

GeriPal

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

For example, we spend the first half talking about a RCT simulation study of clinician verbal and non-verbal communication with a seriously ill patient with cancer. In one room the physician under study interacts with a white patient-actor, and in another room interacts with a Black patient-actor.

Patient-Centered 111

Patient-Centered Patients IT Healthcare 111

GeriPal

MARCH 30, 2023

Liz wrote a fabulous perspectives piece in the NEJM titled “ Deciding on My Dimples ” which talks about her experience as a patient doing shared decision making during neurosurgery for resection of an astrocytoma. But my piece in the New England Journal is about being a patient right before awake brain surgery. I could learn this.

IT 95

IT Patient-Centered Patients Healthcare 95

GeriPal

MARCH 3, 2022

A little over a decade ago, Ken Covinsky wrote a GeriPal post about a Jack Iwashyna JAMA study finding that older adults who survive sepsis are likely to develop new functional and cognitive deficits after they leave the hospital. Shunichi Nakagawa’s Tweet that went viral on responding a patient request to drink ice water before death.

Patient-Centered 96

Patient-Centered Patients IT Hospital 96

GeriPal

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

Have you ever had that moment when talking to a patient, when you realized that the phrase you just uttered, which you’ve uttered a hundred times before, came out rote and scripted? And in response, the family or patient looked at you like you were from another planet? Summary Transcript Summary. Yeah, I’ve been there too.

Illness 101

Illness IT Patient-Centered Patients 101

GeriPal

APRIL 18, 2024

We discuss, among other things: Findings that in several studies AI was rated by patients as more empathetic than human clinicians (not less, that isn’t a typo). I remember walking through San Francisco Airport with Bob, we just happened to be there at similar times, and saying, “Eric and I are thinking about starting a blog.”

Electronics 139

Electronics IT Patients Healthcare 139

Pamela Wible MD

JUNE 19, 2025

It’s now so common that more than half of all doctors report symptoms, with medical students , residents , and even senior clinicians feeling pushed to the brink. In order to heal her patients she first had to heal her ailing profession. These human rights violations are perpetuated in first-world brand-name hospitals.

Clinic 246

Clinic Nurse Practitioner IT Medical 246