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Interesting article....


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I am a total outsider and the situation is unknown to me. It looks like Vail is a dictator unsccessfully using bully tactics, unable to lead and it seems to me that whatever problems exist, he needs to go. I assume it will play out in the fullness of time and won't affect med students @ Windsor. I am sure locals on this forum will step up to the plater and make informed comment.

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Do you think it will impact the windsor medical students?

 

I cannot imagine that these issues and games will have a ripple effect on the medical students.

 

It will, however, directly impact upon the careers of doctors who are swallowed into the black hole (that seems to have been formed) by the swirling hurricanes at and near its edges.

 

Gamesmanship, politics are all part of life in any profession and this is a poster child for what should not happen, but does), perhaps a rather extreme example of professional life gone wrong!

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I posted this more as a concern of the current doctors' careers rather than on the clerkship program. I think that regardless of hospital politics, the clerkship program is solid and a product of the the school and local doctors :) , although it is not immune to the ripple effect of staffing.

 

What I am more concerned about is how such an issue became the centre of newspaper editorials and front page articles. It could be that:

 

1) The Windsor Star doesn't have much to write about which can be true at times :P

 

2) Several issues between administration and doctors exist and have been brewing for a while. I think this is a result of those botched pathology reports that a few posters mentioned above as well as the unnecessary surgeries. It is to bad that internal issues are being fought out in the media though....:(

 

It's a tough call to make, I just keep seeing these headlines in the local paper and wonder about the professional relations of doctors and staff at the hospital. A lot of us are still far from being at the point, but it's interesting and perhaps important to keep up with medically related news.

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I posted this more as a concern of the current doctors' careers rather than on the clerkship program. I think that regardless of hospital politics, the clerkship program is solid and a product of the the school and local doctors :) , although it is not immune to the ripple effect of staffing.

 

What I am more concerned about is how such an issue became the centre of newspaper editorials and front page articles. It could be that:

 

2) Several issues between administration and doctors exist and have been brewing for a while. I think this is a result of those botched pathology reports that a few posters mentioned above as well as the unnecessary surgeries. It is to bad that internal issues are being fought out in the media though....:(

 

It's a tough call to make, I just keep seeing these headlines in the local paper and wonder about the professional relations of doctors and staff at the hospital.

 

The newspaper is naturally interested in this newsworthy story and it is in the interests of some and not others to deal with the issues behind closed doors. Going public is a legitimate avenue to pursue n/w/s Vail's threats/preferences. It needs to play out in the fullness of time.

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it really is a tough decision on whose side is just (doctors vs. administration). the professional way to handle conflicts is internally (within the hospital's channels, as Vail indicated). however, sometimes complaints go unheard, or the administration does not take the proper action... this leads to desparation, which could justify the physicians at HDGH seeking media attention anonymously, fearing punishment if they went public with their identity...

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it really is a tough decision on whose side is just (doctors vs. administration). the professional way to handle conflicts is internally (within the hospital's channels, as Vail indicated). however, sometimes complaints go unheard, or the administration does not take the proper action... this leads to desparation, which could justify the physicians at HDGH seeking media attention anonymously, fearing punishment if they went public with their identity...

 

Plus we are simply trained to actually raise the alarm publicly - doctors are supposed to be health advocates, supposed to be bold in a sense. Doctors are also generally used to taking a leadership role and do not take kindly to admins throwing around rules that interfere with their function. After all usually at the end of the day it is the doctor that in trouble when health care is compromised.

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Plus we are simply trained to actually raise the alarm publicly - doctors are supposed to be health advocates, supposed to be bold in a sense.

 

Advocacy is a CanMeds role, if memory serves.

 

 

Doctors are also generally used to taking a leadership role and do not take kindly to admins throwing around rules that interfere with their function.

 

Indeed. I've been watching with a combination of interest and despair as several hospital boards/LHINs in Southern Ontario have moved to exclude physicians from board membership, or at the very least have tried to make them "non-voting" members of the board. Apparently a couple of years in b-school/accounting school makes one better prepared to run a hospital than those who have dedicated their lives to caring for the sick and the dying. :confused:

 

 

 

 

Full disclosure for this thread: I clerked at HDGH for Drs. Heartwell, Forse and Vail.

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Advocacy is a CanMeds role, if memory serves.

 

Indeed. I've been watching with a combination of interest and despair as several hospital boards/LHINs in Southern Ontario have moved to exclude physicians from board membership, or at the very least have tried to make them "non-voting" members of the board. Apparently a couple of years in b-school/accounting school makes one better prepared to run a hospital than those who have dedicated their lives to caring for the sick and the dying. :confused:

 

Full disclosure for this thread: I clerked at HDGH for Drs. Heartwell, Forse and Vail.

 

Yeah that is disturbing - I know some doctors got or are getting an mba to try to compensate for some of this business style takeover approach to things.

 

Personally I really think you do need both business and medical backgrounds to be truly effective but I can see why the government etc would lean towards a business person over a doctor.

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Personally I really think you do need both business and medical backgrounds to be truly effective but I can see why the government etc would lean towards a business person over a doctor.

 

Indeed. Having worked in industry before entering medicine I regularly see things in hospitals that make my teeth grind with frustration. The inefficiency is maddening.

 

However I'm a physician, not a bean-counter. Since you're at Western I'm sure you've had exposure to Dr. Nisker. While I may not agree with everything he says, I like his framing of the "sacred relationship" between physicians and patients. That, above everything else, is what makes physicians different from administrators, bean-counters and Nurse "Sorry, I'm on break" Practitioners.

 

My patients trust me, probably more than I deserve, to do what's right for them to make big decisions about life and about death. That is something that a spreadsheet-hugging bean-counter can/should never do.

 

Sorry. Bad week at work.

 

pb

 

 

 

 

 

 

Full disclosure for this thread: I clerked at HDGH for Drs. Heartwell, Forse and Vail.

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