As healthcare evolves, new buzzwords have entered the collective dialogue among physicians and other medical professionals, reflecting shifting trends and issues in the industry.
Two physicians joined Becker’s to discuss the buzzwords they are tired of hearing and why they are overused or problematic.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Robert Duhaney, MD. Office Medical Director at One Medical (Austin, Texas): The buzzword that may be overused is “patient-centric.” The tension is that in healthcare there’s a balance between the patient and the clinician/staff team — especially in employment healthcare models. Healthcare leaders have to serve the interests of both groups. For the providers, every interaction should be patient-centric by default; framing it as a special goal suggests that standard care might not be. On the other hand, it could be argued that healthcare leaders should focus on their clinical staff — a concept of “care for the teams to care for the patient.”
Alan Falkoff, MD. Hartford (Conn.) Healthcare Medical Group: Burnout. There is no such thing and it places blame or failure on the physician. What it is, is moral injury and harm to the individual physician created by the system under which they work.
