The woman was sitting on a gurney in the emergency room, and I was
facing her, typing. I had just written about her abdominal pain when she
posed a question I'd never been asked before: "May I take a look at
what you're writing?"
At the time, I was a fourth-year medical
resident in Boston. In our ER, doctors routinely typed visit notes,
placed orders and checked past records while we were in patients' rooms.
To maintain at least some eye contact, we faced our patients, with the
computer between us.
But there was no reason why we couldn't be
on the same side of the computer screen. I sat down next to her and
showed her what I was typing. She began pointing out changes. She'd said
that her pain had started three weeks ago, not last week. Her chart
mentioned alcohol abuse in the past; she admitted that she was under a
lot of stress and had returned to heavy drinking a couple of months ago.
via NPR.
Read the full article here.
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