Are the best tools Swiss army knife-like - flexible, adaptable, multifunctional, and easy to use? Or is a knife-like tool - optimally sharpened, single-purposed for cutting - ideal? When framed as a simplistic dichotomy, it is obvious that tools do not have a universal or intrinsic “bestness,” but are context dependent and best viewed instrumentally… Continue reading The Swiss Army Knife
Tag: False Positive
Riskology
Risk-management is a foundational competency of not only the emergency physician, but the department (ED) as a whole (future essay). Utilizing a suite of tools and processes, the department aims to identify and stratify - often surreptitious - risk in an environment that is time, attention, and informationally constrained. It is tasked to rule-in/rule-out high-morbidity… Continue reading Riskology
Windows to the Soul
The development of technologies such as the telescope and microscope were transformational events in human history. They extended human perception to the far and the small, to the big and the near. Thereby upending our understanding of the universe and our place within it. Similarly, radiological imaging has extended our power of perception, not to… Continue reading Windows to the Soul
in the Shadows, between the Lines
It has been estimated that an emergency physician makes 10,000 decisions in an 8 hour shift. I am not sure how that statistic was derived, but as an emergency physician I can experientially attest to the feeling of decision fatigue during many shifts. Many and the most salient of those decisions revolve around what tests… Continue reading in the Shadows, between the Lines
S-Fxn 