“Now Tell Me Again What You Are”: A Family Doctor Reflects on the Importance of Context

摘要

When the third trainer asked me what I was, it dawned on me that they might not get it. I was enduring the 16-hour training required for my third electronic medical record system in the last 5 years. As I had walked into the community college classroom building where I would undergo this indoctrination, the shiny chrome handrails and smooth slate tile floors were anything but welcoming. Things got off to a good start when I explained that I was a family doctor and we needed to start with building outpatient templates.But when I explained that I deliver babies and I needed a delivery note and those orders, one trainer said “you can’t do that.” I paused and took a deep breath and thought about how many people have tried to tell me that over the last 35 years at multiple hospitals, I struggled to explain the concept of womb to tomb care. She said “that’s great, but you can’t do that the way templates are set up. You can only function in one context.”I thought about the metaphorical meaning of what she had just said.