This recent NYT piece by Nirmal Joshi is interesting, and as someone with a human biology background, I’m a big fan of improving patient-doctor communication.

But the author fails to address a critical factor here – oppressive patient volumes. In the Emergency Department (ED), a physician must balance the time she’s spending with each patient with the wait time that many others are suffering without having had the privilege of seeing a doctor yet. And crushing patient volume is not just an ED problem. A primary care friend of mine told me she has to see one patient every 15 minutes to keep on schedule. She points out that just getting a thorough history from a new, elderly patient and counseling on preventive care can take all of that time.