Favorite Quotes
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." - HL Mencken
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"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - Confucius
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"The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease" - Sir William Osler
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" The best test of a person's character is how he or she treats those with less power." - Bob Sutton
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"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them - well, I have others." - Groucho Marx
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
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"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them" - Friedrich Nietzsche
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"Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple." - Charles Mingus
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"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - Albert Einstein
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"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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"This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around." - Talking Heads, Life During Wartime
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"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Go and learn it." - Hillel, Talmud, Shabbath 31a
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"You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing." - Thomas Sowell
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"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." - HL Mencken
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"If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." - Abraham Maslow
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"A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not to dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves." - Herbie Hancock
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"There are no facts, only interpretations." - Nietzsche
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"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." - Anatole France
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"In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ====
Nov - 15
Dec - 19
Jan - 21
Feb - 8
Mar -
Thoughts for 2010
4 Jan2010
Rather than give a retrospective on 2009, I have decided this year to look forward. I will discuss both personal goals as well as predictions.
Personal:
- Expand my writing and teaching on pharyngitis. I have several projects underway, and plan to develop a body of work that leads to better decision making and decreased morbidity and mortality.
- Continue my focus on routine laboratory test interpretation. I believe that too many students, residents and practicing physicians have clues present that they misinterpret. We need to spend more time developing a rational and complete approach to routine laboratory testing. By routine I mean BMP, CMP, CBC, ABG, routine coagulation studies and U/A.
- Continue growing as an educator, especially increasing an understanding of what makes attending rounds successful. We are submitting an intriguing abstract to SGIM on this subject. In February we will try using those results to help attending physicians and residents improve.
Policy:
- Obviously, on this blog I write frequently about policy. I hope to continue to stimulate thinking about policy through these rants.
- Continue an exploration of primary care. We must better understand what drives residents and primary care physicians away from primary care. I highly recommend the book DRIVE by Daniel Pink. I will write about that book in the near future. We need policy wonks to understand the field of motivation and how our current primary care payment system works to undermine motivation and excellent health care.
- Understand the health care reform bill that I expect will pass. The bill will have strengths and weaknesses. We must capitalize on the strengths and minimize the weaknesses.
Teaching:
- As an adjunct to #2 under personal, I will continue to publish patient cases that make important teaching points, especially with regard to routine laboratory testing.
- I will continue to reflect on attending rounds on a regular basis, as many readers seem to like this format.
I plan to have another great year. Blogging gives me a wonderful outlet for my urge to stand on a soap box and shout out my opinions. I hope my posts stimulate thinking and learning. Thanks for reading.
db
Related posts:
- Reflections on 30 years of ward attending
- Thoughts on lobbying for HR 2350
- The Senate and primary care
- Teaching bedside manner
- Massachusetts should inform US plan
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- In: Medical Rants
2 Responses to Thoughts for 2010
Michael Kirsch, M.D.
January 4th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Rob, from your post: Understand the health care reform bill that I expect will pass.
I hope you will succeed on this so you can then explain the bill to our legislators. Best wishes for the New Year!
pcb
January 4th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
keep it up. I find your blog quite educational and entertaining.