* * Anonymous Doc: Why They Weren't Discharged By 11AM

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Why They Weren't Discharged By 11AM

"I'm getting a lot of flak because our patients are being discharged too late.  They really want them out by eleven," said my attending.

"I know, but I'm trying to prioritize the patients who have things actively going on.  I want to make sure they're taken care of before I deal with the discharges."

"Well, they gave me a list of the patients who were discharged late in the day.  They want us to go through and justify each of these late discharges.  You think you can write up a couple of lines on each?"

[I sigh.  He hands me the list.  I look at it.]

"Um, there's a really good reason for pretty much everybody on this list."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah.  These are all patients who died.  After eleven."

"Oh."

"So I guess I'll just try and get our patients to die earlier in the day from now on."

"That would be good.  Thanks."

2 comments:

  1. Easy. Just get a medical student to take care of the moribund patients and done. All nice and dead.

    (Above advice is totally not coming from my personal experience as a medical student. Cough.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. so at 10:55am
    you will be talking to the dying patient
    "come on, dude, could you pls die, it is almost 11am", lol~

    ReplyDelete