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Comment by md2be | Hacker News Reader

The guy is a first year resident and should be working 70 hrs a week perfecting his skills. If he is cheating the system now by not being fully committed, I can only imagine what he will be doing 7 years from now.

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Since when has the technology community at large considered automating menial data entry to be "cheating?"

Hospitals spend hundreds of thousands of dollars training residents (med students learn practically (as in practical knowledge) nothing in med school). Therein lies the cheating.

Isn't technology meant to make our lives easier? If this can increase the productivity of doctors, I reckon it's a good thing. That way they can spend those full 70 hours a week perfecting their skills, instead of wasting 20 hours to enter and retrieve data every week.

Why don't doctors have clerical staff to do the data entry?

They do. Both do. No one is immune to data entry in the medical world.

depends on where you work and how much staff is hired for this type of work, but with the way the EMR is set up, and who legally has to start and sign notes (a doctor), you cannot avoid some data entry unless it is somehow automated for you

exactly what I'm trying to do

If you gain 10 minutes/week for every surgeon in USA, then you've done more healing than you could by simply being a great surgeon for your whole life.

This guy has one shot at learning medicine, his residency. If he wants run a trivial startup, so be it. But his first responsibility, at this time, in his training, (no he is not really a doctor yet) including his residence and fellowship.

His first responsibility is to whatever he wants to make with his life, not neccessarily his training. If he wants to run a medical startup that you call trivial, it's just as good (if not better) way to go as focusing on his residence and fellowship.

The default career directions for anyone, including medical residents, are just that - simply defaults, not some oath or moral obligation to follow that exact career choice 'till death do us part'.

Have lower level people, such as a Medical Assistant or a 1st year resident do the data entry.

ahhh, feels good to do more healing than a great surgeon, before I've even had my Sunday coffee.

Unfortunately, the note that has to be entered in the EMR has to be started and signed by a fellow (a person who has finished residency but still in training before becoming an attending doctor for those who don't know), and this is the note with the data, and so I (a first year resident) would have to be sitting next to the fellow, he would have to start the note, then I would have to switch seats with him, do some data entry, then he would have to write his impression ("normal", "COPD", "asthma", but in more doctor like terms) and sign the note. The way the system is set up makes this impractical.

Working Smart > Working Hard

If a Dr. sacrifices their productivity for a short time, with the result that he increases the productivity for all Dr's; then the Dr. has done the opposite of cheating.

>I can only imagine what he will be doing 7 years from now.

OP could follow your advice and be an average Dr. Or OP might actually succeed in improving wasteful processes in hundreds of hospitals.

> should be working 70 hrs a week perfecting his skills

I already work 60-80hrs/week, should I be working more? Would 100hrs/week make you happy?

> I can only imagine what he will be doing 7 years from now

6 years from now if I continue on this road keep my head down and work hard I'll be making 300-400k/year as an attending physician. I can work 4 days per week and make 200k. I don't care too much about money as long as I can pay my loans off and eat out once in awhile. That's all nice and dandy but I'd rather spend some of my free time building something that helps the healthcare system.

Residents don't need to spend every waking hour focused on their job. As long as he is doing his job properly, what's wrong with doing some coding / business on the side?

A First year resident know jack shit about medicine and works 13 hrs a day making mistakes along the way in hopes of learning enough so not to make these same mistakes when they will be in command (5 years from now).

You are very sure of how he should learn and contribute, why is this?

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