Tackling Physician “Moral Injury”​ with Tech and Passion?

Calling all physician informaticists, EMR champions, Digital Natives, and Wellness leaders: How do you find joy in the current state of “moral injury” that the majority of physicians are suffering today?

You follow your passion and try to fix the problem…personally and professionally.

Thanks to STAT News for originally penning the piece, and to @zdoggmd for popularizing this distinction between moral injury vs burnout (watch the video if you have not seen it yet…it is GREAT!: https://zdoggmd.com/moral-injury/)

I (Adam Carewe MD) made a shift in medicine several years ago and jumped feet first (I was a bit apprehensive to go head first) into Medical Informatics to try to improve part of the problem effecting the “moral injury” root cause in modern medicine: the administrative and data input burden put on us in medicine today. All physicians and healthcare team members, suffer a disconnect from what their ideal state was for medicine, and the realities of current day practice. I tackled this issue by focusing on optimizing the people (physicians and care teams) and their workflows (through teaching and communication) and also optimizing the systems (EHRs and other clinical tools). This helped to close this gap of “ideal vs reality” by teaching physicians and teams to operate as efficiently as possible given the constraints of systems, government regulations and financial pressures. 

This has all led to incredible career satisfaction through Medical Informatics and being able to work with some of the best people of my life. My friend and coworker Dr Dale Gold and I just launched a New Group on Facebook for like-minded physicians by: creating a place for physicians with passion for technology, early adoption, and disrupting the boundaries of traditional medicine to collaborate, share, and connect.

“No one else is going to fix medicine for us, and no one knows the problem better than the physicians who work in this field for the right reasons of helping patients.”

Dr Dale Gold

It is time that we join together and help ourselves.

Let’s share, collaborate, and work together towards a goal of utilizing technology not as the problem but as the solution, to a returned physician career satisfaction for the benefit of the patients who need us to stay in medicine.If you share this drive to fix the problem, please join us in discussion: on the web or Facebook or (a special group for just physician informatics pros on) LinkedIn.

Switching gears…

I took this same drive and passion for work (optimizing the technology and people in healthcare) to my personal/hobby life with a recently launched consumer focused tech blog (TechDadCO.com) about “Rad Dad” (applicable to mom and non-parents too) products and gadgets (and cars, and 3-wheeled things), that I use regularly in my daily life to spread that knowledge to my friends and family (since I knew they were going to ask me anyways what the best robot vacuum is 🙂.)

The goal is not to make money but to actually help people make good decisions about some expensive, and niche tech purchases. Maybe someday this will turn into an income generator, but that is not the end goal. My point is…

“find your passion in life and go for it. It may just help heel your “moral injury” as a physician or healthcare worker.“

Adam Carewe MD

There are like minded physicians everywhere. I was able to find this professionally (in Medical Informatics) and hobby (Consumer Tech Blog – TechDadCO.com), and will hopefully continue with the launch of the new collaborative space on Facebook for other NerdMDs (DOs are absolutely allowed too, but physician required…the url was available for NerdMDs.com not NerdDOs.com.) 🙂

I’d love to hear your thoughts. And please share with like minded colleagues.