Asking questions.

"The patient has all the answers, they are the expert in their diseases...it's up to the doc to ask the right questions."
--Dr. Larry Weed, MD. Inventor of the "problem-oriented medical record, and guest lecturer at Tufts Medical around 1981.

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I wish I'd kept track. The number of times per year that I pulled out the above quote from Dr. Weed...probably about 10 or 20. Over my eighteen or so years of part- and full-time teaching, that's a lot of med students and residents whom I hope to have influenced. That one bullet point from a lecture made a huge diff in my practice and my teaching.

Later teachers called it, "Patient-centered medical care." Duh. Except that in the rush in the mid-20th century to specialize and sub-specialize, along with mastering the increasingly predominant lab and technology involved in modern medicine...right, you guessed it (or, you were there)...the patient rather got lost in the weeds out beyond left field, and the old-time GP (general practitioner) was elbowed aside as a curmudgeonly and irrelevant old uncle...oh, and, ignorant, too.

Well, what goes around...in 1969, the GPs decided that riding in the baggage car of the medical train was no fun: the American Academy of Family Practice was formed, in an effort to keep alive the practice of medicine that was indeed patient-focused rather than disease-focused. I just loved being a family doc, with the challenges of knowing a whole lot in both breadth and in depth, and guiding my patients through the congested landscape of modern, technological, specialist-laden medical practice.

The best part was asking questions of my patients. Wide open questions. Questions that you could drive a truck through, such as, "So, tell me more about this problem..."
and, my favorite, "Okay, give me more details....uh-huh, what else?"

Writing is kinda like that, except one part of my brain poses the question, and another part tells the fingers what is the answer.

"Tell me more about how those guys escape. Details, please."
[Sound effect of quill scratching away on parchment.]


Writing...don't try to have all the right answers...but pray to ask the right questions. Hmm, do you suppose that works in other arenas? [Relationships? Religion? An alternative to ranting?]