March 20, 2005

Cranky

On my break from work. It's Saturday night; the ERs are stuffed to the gills with work, but what's my employer routing my way?

Discharge summaries.

I bloody hate discharge summaries. Boringest things ever. And I hate cardiology notes. And admission histories and physicals. And preoperative reports. And, well, anything non-ER, basically. Acute care can suck it as far as I'm concerned.

It's not just discharge summaries, either. It's discharge summaries dictated by all the bright, young, hopeful residents and interns and . . . subinterns? I swear I just had a report dictated by someone who announced himself as that. Didn't know they even had those.

The boyfriend wanted to know what's next: Discharge summaries by candy stripers?

Probably.

Posted by Ilyka at March 20, 2005 03:45 AM in in praise of idleness
Comments

I did my first dictation when I was a subintern and I was so scared I was going to screw it up. I actually wrote the entire H&P out long hand and then dictated it.

Posted by: Scott at March 20, 2005 05:29 AM

I hate dictating discharge summaries - especially really long ones where the patient is in the hospital for a really long time, gets complications and multiple tests - you have to list ALL the tests or the hospital won't get reimbursed. I'm not good at dictating anyway, much better with writing. I usually have to take a lot of notes before starting.

I just realized you're probably thinking "Gee. Thanks for sharing that boring piece of info," but I'll leave it in anyway. :)

Posted by: Dr Alice at March 20, 2005 06:57 PM