Week of April 16, 2001
Monday
Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday
Saturday Sunday
Most Recent Update
Just a warning, short update tonight. I am running fever and feel like I got run over by a truck. That is what Delanae and my patients have been experiencing, except Delanae has not had the fever. My guess is that I got it from Delanae. It is viral and nothing but time will get it well. In the meantime, I will try and suffer in silence.
Of course, when you don't feel well you can be guaranteed a busy day. I had three patients to see in the hospital today, one of whom I was able to send home after rechecking her chest x-ray which showed improvement in her pneumonia. She must quit smoking in order to get well and get off the oxygen she is on at the present. She is much better than she was when I left Friday.
My other patients has diffuse blockage of the arteries in his heart due to untreated diabetes, high cholesterol, and smoking. He keeps having chest pain at home while doing nothing or very little. He can only be treated with medication as he has no bypassable vessels. We keep adding more medications to him in an attempt to allow him to do the normal activities of daily living without causing a heart attack. So far, we have not been successful as he is having daily chest pain just walking around in his home. He is in his middle 50's and looks much older and is now permanently disabled. His chances of survival for 12 months are not good. He's finally having to face the truth of his situation so is going through several emotions right now. All I can do is support him through this process.
Tomorrow looks busy also. I have back to back meetings in the morning, starting at 7. I also have to find the time to see the two patients I have in the hospital and start my office at 8:30. This is all assuming that I can drag myself out in the morning and go to work. I probably will but do not look forward to it. See you tomorrow.
Today was a little less frantic than yesterday. I managed to see my two patients in the hospital and go to both meetings and make it to my office on time to begin office hours at 8:30. Then, I had a few no-shows today in the office which made things less frantic. I don't like no shows when I have such a long waiting time for a routine appointment but they do allow me to get caught up on paperwork without having to stay late and do it.
Tonight, I had to attend a presentation on Organizational Integrity. The presentation is designed to acquaint all our clinicians and other staff members about what they can reveal outside work and what they cannot. It also includes what the federal government believes us physicians are doing to defraud it and what we can do to protect ourselves. Of course, we are presumed guilty and expected to prove our innocence. Anyway, we had an attorney talking to us about ethics and integrity which seemed to me to be a little strange. He is employed by the corporation that owns our group so I guess that means he is a little more ethical that some other attorneys I know. Before I get angry e-mails, I do have some friends who are attorneys and they are persons of character so I know that I should not lump all attorneys into the same category.
Tomorrow I have only one meeting scheduled up to this point. I do need to go by medical records and dictate one discharge summary and sign some charts. There is also paperwork to be done at the office but maybe I will actually have some time off on my day off. We'll see how tomorrow plays out.
We had a very nice day here in Washington today. It was sunny and in the low 60's which qualifies for warm here at this time of the year. I got to be out in it some, at least drive in this nice weather. I had to drive to Portland today to get Delanae's birthday present and it was a pleasant drive. No hints here as she reads this site.
My meeting this morning turned into two meetings. The first was a video teleconference among the group trying to standardize our electronic medical records software across the different regions our corporation is in. We were trying to design the command screens so they would be the same for everyone but I don't think we are going to be able to. The physicians who only practice in the hospital want to look at different things than those who practice both in the office and the hospital. I should say, the hospitalists don't want to look at some of the things we do and see no need to have them pop up on their command screens. We can live with having different command screens depending on where your practice is based primarily but it will mean a little more work to get them designed. We will be having a face to face meeting the first week of May to iron this out some more.
After this meeting, I went to see my patients in the hospital. They are both getting better and the man with the chest pain may have gone home this afternoon, after my partner checked on him.
I also got completely current on my medical records. I only had one chart to dictate and none to sign which was a pleasant surprise. Now that we are signing all the dictated reports online I have less paperwork in the hospital to sign. There are still occasional verbal orders from calls at night while on call but that is all.
The other meeting was with someone writing a physician newsletter for the corporation. I was asked to edit it and to have my name attached to it but I am not writing it. It is about privacy and confidentiality and the new federal rules being written to assure that medical records are both private and confidential especially as more and more are going online. We are trying to keep all the physicians who are employed by or work in the hospitals owned by our corporation informed about what the corporation is doing to assure that we are in compliance with these new rules.
Finally, I got to run a little this afternoon. I had missed two days due to my illness but I got out for about twenty minutes this afternoon to enjoy the sun. I can tell I am not back at full strength yet but it was good to be out running. I just hope I am not worse tomorrow, I don't think I will be. Tomorrow night is the retirement dinner for my recently retired partner and I have been asked to say a few words about him. It will be a FEW words as I am not a public speaker. I will tell you about it tomorrow night.
Tonight's retirement dinner for my recently retired partner went very well. There were a lot of people there, more than I expected but I was happy for him that so many people showed up. He had practiced in this community for 38 years before retiring. There were many memories shared tonight. I was the last speaker on the program and my words were few especially since everyone was getting a little antsy by that time. I did get to talk to a couple of people that I had not gotten much of a chance to talk to before.
Today was the usual harried Thursday for me. I did not get all my charts dictated before I had to leave to make the restaurant in time for the retirement dinner. There are only three left to do which I should be able to do quickly in the morning as I made notes on them this evening. I still have two patients in the hospital, both of whom may be ready for discharge tomorrow. No morning meeting tomorrow for a change and the lunch meeting is a continuing education program on cervical cancer.
Short update tonight but not much else to write about for today. Tomorrow may be more interesting and I should have more time tomorrow night to write something interesting. Have a great Friday everyone.
No update.
As it turned out, I did not have any time to post last night. I did not get home until after 8 as it was a very busy day in the office yesterday. This is in contrast to the previous two days which were not as busy for everyone but Friday made up for it for everyone. When I started the afternoon patients I still had some morning charts undictated. I did manage to send both my hospital patients out of the hospital. I did get all my charts dictated and phone calls made but still have some reports I need to send out before Monday morning so I guess I will get to go to the office tomorrow for a few minutes and finish up.
After getting home so late last night Delanae and I just zoned out on the couch and watched "Bowfinger" on DVD. We then went to bed early so we could get up today and head to the tulip fields.
We did go to the tulip fields today. It has become a tradition since we moved to Washington that we go to the tulip fields for Delanae's birthday. Today we went up to the Skagit Valley which is about an hour north of Seattle. There, the tulip fields are larger than the ones south of Portland. Today was a beautiful day to go as it was sunny all day long and dry. However, a drive should have taken about three hours took us five hours due to the traffic jams in the Seattle metropolitan area. The jams were only in the northbound lanes and we never did see any reason for them. Despite the problems, we did make it there and had a good time. I am sure Delanae will have pictures posted on her site before long.
Tomorrow will hopefully be a day of rest. I have some reading that I need to do before the Leadership Council retreat next Friday and Saturday and I can hopefully do that tomorrow and Wednesday as well as the usual church services.
As predicted yesterday, Delanae does have pictures of our trip up on her site now. She spent a lot of time this afternoon working on the pictures, both for her site and for her albums. She was not feeling well enough to leave the house so she spent the time in front of her computer instead. Her upper respiratory infection does not want to go away nicely. Others have had this problem also.
Today has been rainy and cool today, in contrast to yesterday when it was sunny and warm. By the middle of this week it is supposed to clear off and warm up again. We certainly need the rain here for this summer but it has been nice that we haven't had daily rain here this winter and spring.
I am very behind in my reading other Daynoters' sites. For some reason (actually reasons) I have not really had time to look at other sites since last Thursday or so. Hopefully, I can catch up early this week as I do not like to skip their sites for more than one day at a time. I have stayed caught up with Delanae's site however.
Since I am the only physician in our office tomorrow, it will be busy. I had better go and get ready for it and I have some reading I need to do before I go to bed tonight. See you tomorrow.
