Logo

Log In Sign Up |  An official publication of: American College of Emergency Physicians
Navigation
  • Home
  • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • Clinical
    • Airway Managment
    • Case Reports
    • Critical Care
    • Guidelines
    • Imaging & Ultrasound
    • Pain & Palliative Care
    • Pediatrics
    • Resuscitation
    • Trauma & Injury
  • Resource Centers
    • mTBI Resource Center
  • Career
    • Practice Management
      • Benchmarking
      • Reimbursement & Coding
      • Care Team
      • Legal
      • Operations
      • Quality & Safety
    • Awards
    • Certification
    • Compensation
    • Early Career
    • Education
    • Leadership
    • Profiles
    • Retirement
    • Work-Life Balance
  • Columns
    • ACEP4U
    • Airway
    • Benchmarking
    • Brief19
    • By the Numbers
    • Coding Wizard
    • EM Cases
    • End of the Rainbow
    • Equity Equation
    • FACEPs in the Crowd
    • Forensic Facts
    • From the College
    • Images in EM
    • Kids Korner
    • Medicolegal Mind
    • Opinion
      • Break Room
      • New Spin
      • Pro-Con
    • Pearls From EM Literature
    • Policy Rx
    • Practice Changers
    • Problem Solvers
    • Residency Spotlight
    • Resident Voice
    • Skeptics’ Guide to Emergency Medicine
    • Sound Advice
    • Special OPs
    • Toxicology Q&A
    • WorldTravelERs
  • Resources
    • ACEP.org
    • ACEP Knowledge Quiz
    • Issue Archives
    • CME Now
    • Annual Scientific Assembly
      • ACEP14
      • ACEP15
      • ACEP16
      • ACEP17
      • ACEP18
      • ACEP19
    • Annals of Emergency Medicine
    • JACEP Open
    • Emergency Medicine Foundation
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Medical Editor in Chief
    • Editorial Advisory Board
    • Awards
    • Authors
    • Article Submission
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Privacy Policy
    • Copyright Information

Twitter Hashtag #TipsForNewDocs Contains a Wealth of Wisdom

By Jeremy Samuel Faust, MD, MS, MA, FACEP | on August 14, 2018 | 0 Comment
The Feed
  • Tweet
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Print-Friendly Version

TwitterConventional wisdom tells patients to avoid the hospital in July. With hospitals teeming with a fresh crop of medical school graduates who have been doctors for less time than it’s been since your last haircut, the fear is that both the quality and efficiency of medical care tanks this time of year.

You Might Also Like
  • #ACEP16 Likely to Be Popular Trending Topic on Twitter
  • #ACEP15 Likely to be Popular Trending Topic on Twitter
  • #ACEP18 Hashtag Offers Clinical Pearls, Insight, and Meeting News
Explore This Issue
ACEP Now: Vol 37 – No 08 – August 2018

Of course, there is actually little data to support the notion of a July effect.1 Personally, I am most concerned about September, when a false sense of security may set in.

However, summer is the time when new doctors are most eager to learn and seasoned physicians are at their most committed to teaching. With that in mind, the Twitter hashtag #TipsForNewDocs has become something of an annual tradition in June and July. Here are some of my favorites from this year (lightly edited for clarity).

From Wendy Johnson, MD, MPH (@Artivizm), a family medicine physician and medical director of La Familia Medical Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico: “One of the best axioms I’ve heard re: medicine: ‘Don’t just DO something, STAND there!’ When in doubt, stop for a minute, think about the whole picture, think about the patient’s story. You almost always have time, except in the most emergent situations.”

This is a great reminder that medical school often emphasizes what treatments and tests we might utilize in the most unusual circumstances, but in reality, such heroics are not only unnecessary, they may even prove harmful.

Elianna Saidenberg, MD (@ESaidenberg), a fellow in patient experience in the department of medicine at The Ottawa Hospital in Ontario, added: “Until a patient dies, there is treatment. May not be disease-modifying, but there is treatment of pain and other symptoms. Never, ever tell a patient or family that care or treatment is being withdrawn.”

In other words, it is not a matter of doing everything or doing nothing but rather determining what kind of care a patient needs in each moment.

This tweet by Louis Mullie, MD (@LouisMullie), an internal medicine resident at Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, about how to stay out of trouble when performing procedures should probably be posted on the walls in most hospitals. “If you meet resistance, don’t push. If you (or someone else) breaks sterility, speak out—can you swear on your patient’s life that the procedure was clean? If you feel uncomfortable at any step, call for senior help.”

Marleny Franco, MD (@MFrancoMD), a pediatric emergency medicine specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and St. Mary Medical Center, tweeted about an all-too-common error. “Don’t use a child as a language interpreter. It’s inappropriate, unfair to the child & family, and unethical. Get a proper in-person or phone interpreter.”

Pages: 1 2 | Single Page

Topics: ResidencySocial MediaTwitter

Related

  • Pros and Cons: A Mandated Four-Year Residency

    June 11, 2025 - 1 Comment
  • Is There a Place for TikTok in Emergency Medicine Practice?

    March 21, 2023 - 0 Comment
  • Due Process and Employee Retaliation Laws in Emergency Medicine

    July 10, 2022 - 0 Comment

Current Issue

ACEP Now: July 2025

Download PDF

Read More

About the Author

Jeremy Samuel Faust, MD, MS, MA, FACEP

Jeremy Samuel Faust, MD, MS, MA, FACEP, is Medical Editor in Chief of ACEP Now, an instructor at Harvard Medical School and an attending physician in department of emergency medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. Follow him on twitter @JeremyFaust.

View this author's posts »

No Responses to “Twitter Hashtag #TipsForNewDocs Contains a Wealth of Wisdom”

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*
*

Wiley
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Advertise
  • Cookie Preferences
Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies. ISSN 2333-2603