Medical charts (or medical records) are in a lot of ways, similar to blogs. These folders contain the clinical picture of each patient that a medical facility has seen. In the Philippine General Hospital, these charts are the manuals and the how-to’s of managing a certain disease entity. Once a patient enters the wards, he or she gets assigned to service (think team) of doctors and students. That service will be responsible for that particular patient for the rest of his/her stay at the hospital. Unlike in blogging where authors can easily go on hiatus, doctors, medical students and nurses take time in their work schedule to input their observations, suggestions, orders and instructions to other members of the healthcare delivery team.
When patients develop conditions that warrant special intervention and management by specialists, resident doctors “refer” the patient to another department and/or section in the hospital. If a diabetic patient under the Internal Medicine Department develops a gangrenous foot, the resident-in-charge would most likely refer the patient to the Surgery Department who would in turn assess whether an operation to amputate the diseased foot would be necessary. The intention for the referral is input on the chart and it is up to the student to carry out the orders as soon as possible.
Other ‘orders’ such as diagnostic tests, imaging and pharmacotherapeutic interventions are also written on the chart by the RIC. Other services who are co-managing the patient (via referrals) could also input alternative suggestions to the management but ultimately, it’s the service’s decision on whether to carry out the suggestion or not.
When all is said and done, you would really see that a hospital is ran on life-saving blogs – ‘visited’ by dozens of people everyday and getting comments almost every hour. If you like blogging, you may want to consider medical school.
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