Time management
Almost every problem in medical practice relates to the efficient use of time: Clinics, theatre lists, and surgeries often overrun, diagnostic tests are reported late or not at all, and administration is in chronic frame shift to the right.
Abstract
![][1] “But at my back I alwaies hear Times winged Charriot hurrying near” wrote the 17th century poet Andrew Marvell.(1) His words are still relevant today, and time is central to medicine. From our Apgar scores at birth to the widening intervals of Cheyne-Stokes respiration, medical episodes are measured chronologically. Patients must wait in the waiting room: “Dr Godot will see you now.” Taking a patient's history turns on time: “When did it start?” “How often are the contractions coming?” “Why didn't you report this sinister sign sooner?” The human body works chronobiologically, and cardiac arrests, histopathology reports, and triennial reviews have their own response times. But the practice of medicine is frustrated by time wasting. Medical employment is contracted by notional time. Seniors have half days, and trainees have duty hours, but never enough to do all the work. Acute punctualist or chronic time-waster, the use of time in a medical career determines its success. Finding a moment to peruse Career Focus is a healthy sign, but are you wasting most of the billion seconds available in your 30 year career - Oops! There goes another one, two, three… Many doctors are failing in their use of time: white rabbits in white coats looking at pocket watches and scurrying along corridors muttering, “Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting.” Almost every problem in medical practice relates to the efficient use of time. Clinics, theatre lists, and surgeries often overrun, diagnostic tests are reported late or not at all, and administration is in chronic frame shift to the right. Late doctors waste the time and money of all those next on their list: patients, other professionals and students, but mostly themselves. Few deliberately delay: time failure is more fundamental than mere endemic lateness. The typical picture is doing … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif