‘We can do more, but we don’t have the time to do more,’ said Dr. Brian Goldman about his new book, The Casino Shift
Despite incredible advances in technology, emergency rooms are busier than ever – and Dr. Brian Goldman digs into the unique challenges doctors face today in his newest book.
The Casino Shift is an hour-by-hour account of the unrelenting pressure doctors face in the emergency room, and the acclaimed author and Mount Sinai Hospital emergency physician visited Sault Ste. Marie last week to speak about his book and work on the front lines of emergency medicine.
“There’s no question that today’s young emergency physicians can do more, can diagnose more,” Goldman said.
“At the same time, we’re dealing with constant stressors like hallway medicine, waiting room medicine. We have to try to see people who have incredibly complicated illnesses, complicated by the fact that they’re living longer.”
Although doctors now have access to groundbreaking tools, such as portable handheld ultrasound probes that connect to a smartphone – which provide on-the-spot details for an array of potential ailments – they also carry out their work under ever increasing pressure as emergency rooms fill up.
“I could spend 45 minutes with the patient, except I don’t have 45 minutes to spend with the patient. I often have 10 minutes,” Goldman said.
“We can do more, but we don’t have the time to do more.”
Goldman’s book takes readers on a tour of the time-crunched decision making process emergency physicians face as they visit a cast of patients in emergency rooms to ambulance offloading bays, and it also delves into heartbreaking emergency room scenarios like telling a twenty-something patient they have cancer.
It also reflects on the current state of things in the health-care system.
“In the last chapter, I talk about the moment that we’ve reached. We’re in a moment of crisis. We’re in a moment when you know health-care funding is not keeping up with the demand for hospital services,” Goldman said.
“If you compare us to other industrialized nations, we’re kind of mediocre in terms in terms of resourcing, and we’ve reached a point where a lot of my smart colleagues refer to this as a time of collapse of the health-care system, of the emergency system, and I try to define what that means.”
Goldman’s talk took place before a packed house at The Loft last Wednesday, organized by the Sault Area Hospital Foundation.
Copies of The Casino Shift are available at the foundation office, located inside Sault Area Hospital just off the main lobby, between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. from Monday to Friday.
Proceeds from book sales will support the purchase of new medical equipment for the hospital.