Best of 2010: Top Blog Entries of the Year

Everyone has an opinion and nowhere is that more evident than Practice Notes, our section where your peers and our experts team up to give you advice, news, and other information from the frontlines. From inside the ER to the halls of Washington, D.C., we bring you news and commentary to make you think and sometimes make you laugh. 

Here are our top 10 stories on career issues this year, according to our readers:

10. The Unexpected PatientIt’s hard enough to see the people who are scheduled to be seen. What do you do with the unexpected patient?

9. Primary-care Docs to Get 10 Percent Medicare Bump, Wellness Exams Covered As part of an effort to boost America’s flagging primary care industry, Medicare says it will offer a 10 percent bonus to doctors who perform mostly primary care services in 2011, and will begin paying for an annual “wellness exam” to supplement its one-time-one “Welcome to Medicare” physical.

8. Subpoenaed for Records... That I Don't HaveThere I was sitting alone in the office, doors locked, while I tried to finish up some paperwork and make some phone calls. Suddenly, there was a very loud knock on the door.

7. The "She Said, I Said" Journey With My Former MA Is Over I had completely forgotten that someone from the Department of Labor was going to call me about my former MA’s departure. Perhaps I had subconsciously blocked it from my memory. So I was a little surprised when my receptionist held the phone out to me and said, “Do you a moment to speak to someone about Ms. MA?”

6. I Don't Get No RespectAs I sat here at 5 p.m. waiting for my 4:30 patient to arrive, I couldn’t help but think, al a Rodney Dangerfield: “I don’t get no respect.”

5. The True Value of Board CertificationWe asked Dr. Eric Grosch to take the “first shot” in what we hope is an ongoing conversation about board certification: both pro and con.

4. She Said, I Said - You Fired Me. No, You Quit.My receptionist was on vacation, so it was just me and my medical assistant. Now, I have had problems with her performance in the past, but she was good with the patients and she was functional in her job. Just don’t ask her to go beyond it.

3. Meaningful Use - Doctors Have No Choice A surprising number of our colleagues still don’t know about meaningful use. Some doctors plan to ignore it altogether. (It appears that the fewer the number of years to retirement, the greater the apathy towards meaningful use.) Some practices are optimistically and enthusiastically making plans. Others are revealing their ambivalence, wrestling with the question “should we or shouldn’t we?”

2. Michael Douglas and MisdiagnosisThe wife of actor Michael Douglas recently said she was “furious” that doctors did not locate and treat her husband’s throat cancer earlier, indicating it would have improved his chance of survival. The Oscar-winner’s diagnosis shocked many, both because of who he is and because what was initially thought to be a sore throat turned out to be something far worse.

1. I Fired My First PatientMy staff didn’t know what to do, so I picked up the phone. I know, I know. Foolish move. Needless to say, it ended with her screaming obscenities at me, and me informing her that the conversation was over, and that she needed another endocrinologist. After which I sent her a dismissal letter.