Thursday, May 08, 2008

Zombie Housestaff

Imagine, a hospital administrator's dream come true:

No more handwashing.

No more spread of MRSA.

No more spread of Clostridium dificile.

No need to even touch the patient!

And all for only four to seven thousand dollars a month as operating salary with no more malpractice insurance payments.

Residents and doctors never have to leave the friendly confines of their desk as they sit before the Almighty Electronic Medical Record nor expose themselves to unseemly odors.

What is it?
Welcome to the new world of Zombie Housestaff.

It won't be long 'til they place appendages carrying stethoscopes, thermometers, blood presure cuffs, EKG stickers and pulse oximeter probes complete with operational diagrams for the patient. It will be the ultimate in patient empowerment!

But there remains one question: will it come with a cup holder?

-Wes

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I see a resurgence of the monkey-wrench gang...

I'll be the first to join (and I WON'T tell you who I am! Big Brother and his medical staff are watching...)

I believe your 'dream' will come to pass, although it will be more of a nightmare.

Dang. I miss nurses who nurse and doctors who put their hand on my head and tell me that I am really, really, going to be alright. But if a metal doo-hickey (translation: thing-a-ma-jig) comes at ME with outstretched metal fingers, however clothed in fake skin, I'll reach for my toolbox FAST!

Yeah for you Dr. Wes. I think you are one of 'us'.

Anonymous said...

Sounds interesting. I see the future of medicine a little differently. Not robots taking care of patients and taking orders from people, but people taking care of patients and taking orders from a computer. So much of what we do in medicine involves following alogrithms anyway - computers are really good at that.