Internal Medicine – Day 19

We run into a lot of logistical red tape with inpatient medicine (not that outpatient doesn’t have its fair share). Understaffed floors, impacted services making it take an absurd amount of time for a patient to get a simple procedure or study done, papers going here and there, inefficient communication chains. At the end of the day the people who really face the consequences are the patients. How do we make hospitals more efficient? How can we overcome egos (good luck with that in the hospital)? I have some ideas, but I’m still just a lowly medical student and have a lot to learn about the hospital and medical system. But maybe by the time I get to that point I’ll be too jaded and consumed by the system to want to do anything about it.