Doctors Address Racism

  “We are doctors and medical students who witnessed the events of the week of July 4th, 2016 with horror and grief. The murders of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Philando Castile in St. Paul, Minnesota and… Read More

Is Medicine Becoming Doctor vs. Patient?

  Patient waiting time is often explained as a story of doctors versus patients. A Kaiser News Article on the PBS page is a good example: “Dr. Richard J. Baron, president of the American Board of Internal Medicine, said… Read More

What’s the Third Leading Cause of Death in the US?  Medical Error

  According to a recent New York Times article  “If medical error were considered a disease, a new study has found, it would be the third leading cause of death in the United States, behind only heart disease… Read More

More on Physician Burnout

“Dr. Paul Batalden has frequently stated that “every system is perfectly designed to produce the results it gets,” and health-care systems have been perfectly designed to produce burnout. “ — William Spinelli In the current medical climate, reform and… Read More

Safety Net Hospitals Being Squeezed by Wrong Measures?

Safety net hospitals are having a harder time in the new health care funding landscape- this is not news.  One of new truths is Value Based Purchasing (VBP). VBP promises to reimburse hospitals based on the value of… Read More

Addressing Racism to Improve Population Health

Mary Bassett’s M.D., M.P.H, Commissioner, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, experience as a young doctor and researcher in Zimbabwe continues to frame her perspective as a doctor today.  In an honest and powerful TedMed… Read More

Are the White Coat Days Coming to an End?

Paul E. Sax, M.D. explains “If you’re not immersed in the ID or the Infection Control world, you might not be aware that there’s currently quite the controversy about whether doctors should wear white coats.” The medical question is of… Read More

Collaboration Councils and Doctors Council: Doctor Engagement and Improving Care and the Patient and Provider Experience

In May and June Doctors Council members ratified Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs or contracts) with the New York City Health and Hospital Cooperation (HHC) and its affiliates (the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NYU and PAGNY) creating the… Read More

Primary Care Transformation and Doctor Engagement

One of the themes of this blog has been to critique the idea that “physician engagement” can be achieved through management techniques alone. As Donald Milliken writes in the Canadian Medical Association Journal “… ‘physician engagement’ can sometimes seem… Read More

How Will Safety-Net Hospitals Survive?

  In the post-ACA era, safety-net hospitals will have to address at least two major changes to remain viable. First, they will have to find new sources of funding and different payment methods as fee-for-service transforms and government… Read More