Wednesday, September 19, 2007

"Ethically and medically, we felt justified in keeping him"

Please check out this story by Joseph Kahn in today's Boston Globe. Here's a case where the rewards to the caregivers were as meaningful as to the patient.

5 comments:

  1. and this is why we work here, you learn somthing new everyday, and it is not always from a book!

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  2. I am sorry but I do not feel compassion one bit .Everybody has a story(some have it harder than the others -true), yet not everyone turns into homeless trash.

    -Suicidal depressive illegal immigrant without family friends or anybody else. Who provides for himself though and did not become burden to society.

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  3. Did anyone actually check out his story? Or did the reporter just write it down exactly as he was told?

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  4. Paul, what is your connection to
    The Globe?...your blog postings
    and memos are written about in The
    Globe, and now this story appears
    appears on the front page. Many
    hospitals treat homeless pts with
    kindness and compassion on a daily
    basis but it is rarely front page
    news.

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  5. We have no special connection to the Globe. Like other hospitals in town, we are often of interest because health care is a newsworthy topic. We do try to be helpful and open when reporters call. Of course, the choice of what is newsworthy and where it gets placed in a newspaper is made solely by the people at the Globe.

    Sometimes my emails to staff are picked up by reporters. As you know, once something is written in an email, it often gets spread wide and far.

    You are right that this blog also is picked up from time to time, particularly by the Globe health care blog, White Coat Notes, which often does a "review of the blogs.". No one else in the hospital community in Boston writes a blog, so mine is the only one that can get picked up.

    Hope that helps. You know, for several years after the merger, when BIDMC was ALWAYS referred to as "the financially troubled BIDMC", we wished we had some influence with the paper! We didn't then. We don't now.

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