Failing Forward – Fehler sind Chancen

„Fehler sind nicht das Gegenteil von Erfolg, sondern der Weg dahin.“  John Maxwell

Tubus nicht in der richtigen Röhre, Pneu gestochen, Blutung verursacht.

Ich hab’s alles erlebt und bin Mitglied in jedem dieser Clubs. Und ich weiß, das fühlt sich nicht gut an. Man wollte ihm helfen und hat ihm geschadet. Primum non nocere. Nichts gelernt?

Sie sollten nicht passieren, aber da Ärzte nicht perfekt sind, und Arzt ein Lehrberuf ist, passieren sie. Keine Frage, es wäre besser, sie kämen nicht vor.

Nursing Shortage: The Solution Partially Depends On The Doctors

8 steps to improve the cooperation

Klicke hier um auf deutsch fortzufahren.

Nursing shortage is one of the most urgent problems in healthcare. Considering demographics this is all just the beginning. Is this a problem that only affects nurses? Of course not. Beds are blocked due to nursing shortage and critically ill patients have to be transferred from one hospital to another to provide adequate treatment. Soon staff reductions will also affect doctors.

Früher oder später wird Künstliche Intelligenz den Arzt zumindest weitgehend ersetzen. Wie weit sind wir hiervon entfernt? Der Test zeigt: Weit.

Technology and digitalisation: They don’t care…

Certain developments of medicine are absolutely disliked by us doctors.  But wishing for something to disappear, doesn’t make it go away.

Technology and digitalization are here and they are here to stay. While in the last decades instruments of artificial intelligence mostly assisted and supported doctors, soon they’ll start to replace doctors.

Both of them don’t care, that doctors did an unbelievable job in the last decades.

Technology and digitalization don’t care that there are extremely experienced radiologists, who could discriminate bronchial carcinoma from calcification better than all of their colleagues. Very soon, Watson will take care of that. They are faster, have terabytes (meaning centuries!) of experience. Who wants to compete with that? Thanks radiologists, we don’t need you anymore.

Technology and digitalization don’t care that there are extremely gifted surgeons, who invested decades of their lifetime to learn one operation technique, which now they are the best at with the lowest complication rates. Now we’ve got the DaVinci, that sutures a grape in a freaking bottle. A bottle!! More precise results, less complication rates and they don’t sleep. And we shouldn’t fool anybody, especially not ourselves: Today, everyone is saying they don’t want to be operated on by a robot. That’ll change, once patients figure out how much better they are at operating.

My generation of physicians denies and fights the possibility that doctors will be replaced by robots.

The next generation of physicians will spend most of the time teaching robots to be, think and act like a physician.

The really exciting question is, whether after that we’ll need human physicians how we know it. I don’t have an answer. But I doubt it.

I could not do this job for long…

Last week I worked in the pediatric emergency room for three days. I find it extremely difficult to stay positive and motivated in an emergency room. The work in an ER is never done. There is no goal to reach. You can never close the door and say: “Sorry, we’re full.”

There is no chance to stay on top of things, people keep coming in ALL-DAY-LONG.

There is always a long line behind the check-in filled with sick people. By the time you discharge one patient, another ten patients were admitted. Ambulances keep coming in all the time. Chest pain. Shoot. Gotta check him quickly, could be AMI. ECG normal? Don’t forget ruptured aneurysm. 

Medicine 4.0: Does The Patient Profit, Too?

The digitalization of medicine is going forward rapidly. I am a big fan myself. 

Thanks to my smartphone and well-aligned apps, my clinical workflow is in order and guarantees easy access to relevant information.   
 
But these tools don’t replace good, patient-focused medicine. They are no more than tools. Used in the wrong manner, they can be a not only a distraction but an obstacle to good medicine. 

How To Set the Right Goals And Take Your Career To The Next Level in the next year!

Have you finished your goal-setting for the new year? If not, this time of the year is the perfect to set new goals, that’ll bring you ahead.  Just as in any other part of your life, you should set goals for your medical career. Here is how I set goals for the new year.

How To Succeed In Your Medical Career.

5 Strategies That Never Fail.

It is easier than ever to make a great career in medicine. You wanna know why? Because your competition is very busy.

Your competition is very busy

  • complaining about the tough circumstances they have to work under.
  • because they did not organize they’re daily work schedule well and they are wasting time.
This doesn’t make it EASY for you, but it’s easier. You still need hard work and a strategy: There are five steps to follow. Apply these, and I guarantee you’ll have success.
  1. Find out what your boss wants and overdeliver:
    Every boss has different goals, opinions and priorities. On the other hand there are things he doesn’t care about at all.Make it your top goal to find out what she thinks is really important, when it comes to treating patients. Then spend time delivering on these expectations. Here are a few examples:

    1. My first attending was all about blood gases. If I knew the patient’s CO2 by heart he was happy.
    2. Another doc’s hot topic was the patient’s dry weight. If you didn’t know their dry weight, there was nothing you could do or say to make him happy.
  2. Use your time wisely: 
    Please: don’t complain! Stop complaining right now. The toner is empty, there are too few people on your staff, and on and on we go. There are so many things going wrong. But instead of whining, use your time and energy to change the things you actually can control. Whining is for losers. Never has a chief said: That guy who is complaining all day long: I really need  him on my team…hasn’t happened! Ever!
  3. Have the patient’s best interest in mind.
    This strategy will never go out of style: Listen to the patient, have his best interest at heart and everything will take care of itself. Sooner or later your patients will tell your boss what a great doctor you are and that always is a big advantage!
  4. Hustle.
    Many medical students have had it easy all their lives. I don’t want to bash the millenials all too much but basically: Their parents took care of them, but that is now over. Once you arrive in the working field, expect to work harder than ever before. Volunteer for jobs nobody else want to do.  Be the first guy there and the last to leave.
  5. Be patient. There is no overnight success. You will have to wait years until you will reap the benefits. It takes time. You have time.

Upcoming Webinar: Productivity in Medicine

My 3 Most Important Tools

Time is the most precious resource we have. In the upcoming webinar I share my most important tools I use to ensure that I use my time efficiently.

 

I invite you to join me in this webinar. You will learn the tools I use

 

  • to effectively communicate with colleagues and collaborators
  • to manage “input” (things I like to keep or remember)
  • to access medical information quickly
  • create a workflow with maximum productivity

 

 

Spots fill up quickly, so you should register to reserve your spot.

 

 

 

 

Stop Wasting Your Time With These Three Habits And Save One Hour Per Week.

Time is a precious resource. It is the most valuable resource we have, because as opposed to money and energy it can not be won back. Once it is lost, time is gone forever. So especially in the hospital I am quite intentional on how I spend my time.

And I am even more intentional about how not to spend it. Here are three things to cut out of your life to spend enormous amounts of time.