6 ms·

Programming isn't the only career that is having its soul crushed by red tape. My wife is a doctor and these days about half of her time is spent filling out fo

Programming isn't the only career that is having its soul crushed by red tape. My wife is a doctor and these days about half of her time is spent filling out forms and jumping through bureaucratic hoops instead of actually serving her patients. It is amazing how many nurses, admins, and others around her are constantly trying to figure out how to navigate the system to get any real work done. Every profession needs to have some processes in place to make things run smoothly, but when the processes themselves get in the way instead of helping; then the tail is wagging the dog. It is kind of like free TV shows. We always understood that commercials were necessary to pay the bills when we were not, but now many shows are completely unwatchable as 60% or more of the time spent in commercials.

anonymoose33282 4y ago
I remember in 2017 I went to my GP in the US for a physical + bloodwork, and when I said what I was there for, the doctor recoiled a bit – because allegedly I had been booked for a 15 minute slot, rather than 30. And there was no way to do everything in 15 minutes. I had no idea such a thing even existed. Sure, there's a schedule to appointments and you can't just take all the doctor's time, but I had never ever heard of anything like that. As if at 15:01 into the examination, we'd both turn into pumpkins or something. Or the idea that really any health problem someone had could be observed, diagnosed, and treated in a quarter hour. Turns out that the hospital system she worked in had been aquired by nameless-faceless-health-conglomerate, and that's how they (and many other) hospitals worked now. Everything was KPIs, everything was maximizing people-in-and-out every day. When I asked the doctor how she felt about it she obviously tried to be as democratic as possible about voicing her displeasure at the new system. Annnnnnd about 6 months after that, she transferred to working at a senior living facility where she just gets to chat with elderly people all day, refill their prescriptions, and make sure they stay healthy.
Swizec 4y ago
> about half of her time is spent filling out forms and jumping through bureaucratic hoops I was reading research on this recently because I’m working on an EHR software. The cited study concluded that physicians spend about 15% of their time face-to-face with patients and about 17% filling out documentation. For interns it’s worse with 11% time with patients and 22% writing things down. This was in Principles of Health Interoperability, a book from ~2016. On the bright side, all this documentation has been shown to literally save lives. Not sure it’s doing as much for us coders.
- octokatt 4y ago
  Hilariously, the rates are even better if you have a medical transcriber in the room, taking notes for the doctor so they can focus. ... as long as we can get patients to speak in the normal way they would with a doctor, instead of being inhibited because of the second person in the room.
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    > as long as we can get patients to speak in the normal way they would with a doctor, instead of being inhibited because of the second person in the room. Now... That looks like a place where AI can help.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 4y ago
  > all this documentation has been shown to literally save lives The docs saved them.
  - didgetmaster 4y ago
    As I said earlier, some processes are beneficial. Properly documenting something can help doctors do their job correctly. The same is true for programming. Having good comments, unit tests, and other things that can sometimes seem tedious while we do them; can actually save us time and help us write better code. It comes down to having the right balance of process where it helps instead of gets in the way. The trouble with bureaucracies is they never know when to stop growing.

anonymoose33282 4y ago

I remember in 2017 I went to my GP in the US for a physical + bloodwork, and when I said what I was there for, the doctor recoiled a bit – because allegedly I had been booked for a 15 minute slot, rather than 30. And there was no way to do everything in 15 minutes. I had no idea such a thing even existed. Sure, there's a schedule to appointments and you can't just take all the doctor's time, but I had never ever heard of anything like that. As if at 15:01 into the examination, we'd both turn into pumpkins or something. Or the idea that really any health problem someone had could be observed, diagnosed, and treated in a quarter hour. Turns out that the hospital system she worked in had been aquired by nameless-faceless-health-conglomerate, and that's how they (and many other) hospitals worked now. Everything was KPIs, everything was maximizing people-in-and-out every day. When I asked the doctor how she felt about it she obviously tried to be as democratic as possible about voicing her displeasure at the new system. Annnnnnd about 6 months after that, she transferred to working at a senior living facility where she just gets to chat with elderly people all day, refill their prescriptions, and make sure they stay healthy.

Swizec 4y ago

> about half of her time is spent filling out forms and jumping through bureaucratic hoops I was reading research on this recently because I’m working on an EHR software. The cited study concluded that physicians spend about 15% of their time face-to-face with patients and about 17% filling out documentation. For interns it’s worse with 11% time with patients and 22% writing things down. This was in Principles of Health Interoperability, a book from ~2016. On the bright side, all this documentation has been shown to literally save lives. Not sure it’s doing as much for us coders.

octokatt 4y ago
Hilariously, the rates are even better if you have a medical transcriber in the room, taking notes for the doctor so they can focus. ... as long as we can get patients to speak in the normal way they would with a doctor, instead of being inhibited because of the second person in the room.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  > as long as we can get patients to speak in the normal way they would with a doctor, instead of being inhibited because of the second person in the room. Now... That looks like a place where AI can help.
0xdeadbeefbabe 4y ago
> all this documentation has been shown to literally save lives The docs saved them.
- didgetmaster 4y ago
  As I said earlier, some processes are beneficial. Properly documenting something can help doctors do their job correctly. The same is true for programming. Having good comments, unit tests, and other things that can sometimes seem tedious while we do them; can actually save us time and help us write better code. It comes down to having the right balance of process where it helps instead of gets in the way. The trouble with bureaucracies is they never know when to stop growing.