Yes. I think the objection was that it was cross posted with Hot Topics. Many here are not thrilled with what and how things are played out over there and don't want it spilling over here.

Maybe Mdln decided to pull it herself?

I was going to go back to the link and read the article when I had time. Now I don't see it. I assumed it must be interesting if we were pointed that direction from someone in the medical profession.

Same here. I was going back to read it and it was gone.

I was the one that commented on it or at least suggested that it be posted separately on the three forums which I think were Hot Topics, KT, and I think Doctors. I am not aware of a Doctors forum but there may be. Having several postings that were linked to HT disappear I made the suggestion.

One of the links was a wiki talking about the guy. The other one was political which should be on HT since several have mentioned KT is not a place for political posts.

People get too hung up imagining assumed rules.

I thought the posting was perfectly appropriate, comments about and a link to a medical system-related article in a magazine of a general (not medical) readership.

I glanced at it when I didn't have time to comment and was going to go back to it today to do so but similarly found it gone.

Maybe it was the cross-posting that was the flag.

Maybe Houzz ought not to encourage/allow cross-postings. Posting in individual forums would take care of this "problem", right?

Cross-posting wasn't the problem, since the platform encourages it. No, someone found it objectionable and flagged it, I'm sure. I am not a fan of cross-posting in many situations, but sometimes it's okay.

Thanks for posting this. I remember reading the article that the author referenced in the first paragraph. It isn't just patients that doctors need to care for, they also need to care for themselves and the support for that is often not available. When support for patients isn't there, doctors feel it through stress and frustration.

I have a niece who is a paramedic and another niece who is an ER physician and two friends who are doctors (one is a psychiatrist who is on the front lines of the opioid addiction crisis). The paramedic wound up with PTSD, took a two year leave of absence and is now back at work while the psychiatrist is only working three days a week because of the stress and frustration.

The medical system and doctors are stretched in unimaginable ways.

Thanks for providing that link, I remember my thoughts.

For me, today's physicians are highly trained technicians who, no matter what the specialty, are trained in part by being required to master a huge body of knowledge in a narrow area that's beyond the reach of all but the most accomplished intellects and learners. And who must also learn the art of applying their knowledge to be effective. The key word is "narrow". Too many don't realize that neither the completion of these long difficult training periods, nor years of clinical practice with patients, will lead them to becoming knowledgeable experts in public policy or public health, or health system or practice management, or any one of a number of areas that far too many consider themselves to be experts in.

The author of this article seems to be rather full of himself. Just as an example, the medical profession was one of the last holdouts to resist widespread transformation to modern IT techniques, yet the guy says

"The widespread usage of electronic medical records began in the nineteen-nineties—it’s taken decades to transform doctors into data-entry clerks, a process Atul Gawande described, in this magazine, last year—and yet, in all that time, the adoption of such systems never met with aggressive pushback"

which, based on my own experiences with friends/family healthcare providers and my own doctors, is complete poppycock.

Yes, doctors have a role to speak up as advocates, but you rarely see that happening when there isn't an ulterior motive or thinly disguised benefit to the docs should what they suggest come to pass.

Here's a way to reduce health costs. Let's reduce by 30% insurance reimbursements (including Medicare) given to all docs paid piecework for procedures (surgeons and others). Those who get disproportionate insurance reimbursements for what they do. Let's increase reimbursements to primary care providers and for other office visits by 25%. There will be money left unspent compared to what's done now that can be passed back into the system to lower costs.

Would these MDs wanting to be "patient advocates" agree to this? Of course not.

I disliked the article. I thought it was self-serving and contained nothing useful for me. I did not originally comment but thought it might have gotten pulled due to negative comments.

Rhetorical: Why should negative postings be pulled? We can't have a discussion about something as important as the number one issue in America? Oy. We should be able to civilly discuss these things in a reasonable way. It's what's wrong with our nation. We need to find solutions to so many pressing issues, but it's war right now. Peace my friends.

We should be able to civilly discuss these things in a reasonable way. Exactly. Why is it, that when those very important topics are discussed over on HT, that many threads turn into a brawl?

Everything is being politicized. But then, you already know that! Not just politics, what you eat, who you are... everything. It's an us/them and black/white world right now.

Thanks for re-posting, mdln. I skimmed the article yesterday and now hope to be able to read more thoroughly.

Having two nurse practitioners (one teaching and studying for her PhD) and an RN plus a paramedic/firefighter lieutenant SIL in the family, we hear a lot about changes and ups and downs in the medical profession.

As far as use of electronic media, it appears our doctors have embraced it. If they aren’t using directly with a notebook or iPad, their nurses or staff have access to a computer in each patient exam room and it seems to speed things along with updating info, prescriptions, entry of vitals, etc.

As to the use of electronic media, they've more than embraced it. They want to use things like fitbits to help with care. I think that's my favorite idea. I'd love one that tracks my actual oxygen levels since I have asthma. I can see how it would help those with heart disease and diabetes, as for instances. (I actually run in Topol's circles. Not at his level, but I knew who he was before the article).

The doctor's office that I go to only started using electronic input by the doctors three years ago. The nurse started inputting your vitals perhaps 5 years ago. But I do not see any relationship between that and organizing a doctor's union.

Funny. Everyone decries "Big Government", but I guess "Big Hospital Conglomerates" are better? Anyway, it's what we have -- in urban areas -- and especially in wealthy areas. (Rural areas don't generate enough profits and are subsequently under-served in our Corporate America.)

I have one MD, an ENT, who is still in a private practice. I saw her yesterday. Theirs is the only remaining medical practice in a building that once housed four others. The other doctors are now employed by one of the big hospital chains near me. I suspect that her practice continues to survive as much for its hearing aid component as the medical one.

The hospital chains constantly advertise and expand in competition with one another. DH and I make bets on how long it will be before the most recent bankrupt retailer's storefront will sport signage for one of these 'medical retailers'.

maifleur, a law passed just a few years ago, during the Obama administration, required healthcare providers submitting claims to Medicare to start using electronic medical records. Those not doing so were/are penalized by receiving a reduced Medicare payment for procedures. Yeah, just a few years ago. Another data bit to debunk what that guy said in the article.

Large hospital and group practices, medical schools and their clinics, etc., were early in the health field but the field overall was very late compared to when IT methods were adopted in most of the rest of organizations in our country. And also compared to other countries. The fact is that paper charts get lost, aren't readily accessible, and are inferior to the advantages of IT systems. Medicine is conservative in many ways and too many docs were reluctant to change and so didn't until pushed.

Nice to know things do not get lost so it must just be the practice that I go to. They have no record of my strange stress test and follow up catherization including I have two pulmonary veins to my heart.

It may have been the cross posting with HT that got it pulled. I think I remember Emily saying they "discourage" cross posting anything with HT.

If you scroll through HT, you won't find any threads which are cross-posted. I think she said they enforce that policy in an attempt to keep all the angst confined to one forum.

Unfortunately people don't know, so they cross-post to HT, and then the entire thread apparently just gets killed when it's found by moderators. Ideally they would find some way to disable to ability to chose HT and another forum - it's sad when good discussions are deleted.