Hospital Medicine

Doug Farrago, MD, is a full-time practicing physician in Auburn, ME, and the founder of the Placebo Journal (www.placebojournal.com), which is meant to "empower physicians with a skill that is sorely lacking â€" humor."

To be asked if I washed my hands makes me feel as if my professionalism is being doubted. Is it just me being defensive or is there something demeaning about being questioned like that?

How fair is it to ask families making 30 to 50,000 dollars to buy healthcare for 15,000 dollars?

If you were keeping up with the news at all this week, you know that hospitals have been under recent, intense scrutiny with regard to patient security and offsetting medical errors. Specifically, the healthcare industry's focus on medical privacy and compliance has led to a lack of awareness of the seriousness of patient identity theft.

John D. Kelly, IV, MD, Vice Chairman/Director, Sports Medicine/Orthopaedics, Temple University School of Medicine, discusses the importance of happiness in medicine.

How quickly hospitals pay their bills is a large determinant in their efficiency. Fortunately, there are programs on the market today that can cut down on expenses and the "where did my money go?" factor, easing the burden for both the hospital and the vendor.

It was an unusually quiet Sunday afternoon when I stepped into Mr. P's hospital room. He was a 59-year-old man who had presented to the emergency room earlier with complaints of fever and cough and been admitted with a presumptive diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia.

When it comes to healthcare information technology (HIT), emergency medicine physicians are in-the-know, simply because they have to be. In order to maintain accuracy under intense crisis situations..

Recipient of the Dell/National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Excellence Award on July 10, 2007, Medkinetics provides customizable, Web-based software...

Seemingly overnight the hospitalist movement has blossomed from a concept to an established field in American medicine. The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) estimates there are approximately...

Ana Gutierrez was a 52-year-old Hispanic woman who presented to a teaching hospital emergency department (ED) with abdominal pain and a fever. She spoke little English. The emergency medicine...

Ever since the Institute of Medicine released the report To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Heath System and focused attention on the quality of healthcare in the United States, many have cited the need for the healthcare industry to emulate the airline industry's safety practices and adopt similar standards.

MDNG had the privilege of speaking with Ali Farhat, MD, Director, Division of Hospitalist Medicine, William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, MI, regarding how best to establish an ideal patientâ€"hospitalist relationship.