TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Old vs. New Doctors -- Communication and Technology


Old vs. New Doctors -- Communication and Technology


Lisa Minter (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com)
8 Feb 2005 14:07:43 -0800

The NYT had a piece comparing old vs. new doctors, and when or if
should a doctor retire.

See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/health/08essa.html?8hpib

My mother used the same doctor for at least 40 years. Her family was
concerned that he was too old (he was in his upper 70s), but my mother
was very comfortable with him and confident. She never quite warmed
up to his "junior" associate and always wanted the "senior" doctor.
We finally convinced her it was time to see "junior" and that he had
proved himself. I went with her and "junior" was now 60 himself, to
my surprise. He came on to the practice many years ago, but my mother
never got over thinking of him as the junior member of the team, still
learning.

If I lived close by, I'd be using 'junior' myself.

I am not too comfortable by medical offices that are real ultra-modern
high tech. Sure sometimes high tech is great but sometimes it seems
an impediment. My lab results are faxed back and the fuzzy sheet is
hard to read -- could critical numbers by misinterpreted? (Why
doesn't anyone bother with the 'fine' or 'high-res' settings when
faxing?) Keying the information in and reading it from a computer
screen makes me uneasy -- I think it'd be easier to make an error
there than from pen and paper.

Confidence is a critical part of the doctor-patient relationship. My
mother had great confidence in the senior man and that meant a lot.

My mother always discouraged me from seeing an optometrist, feeling an
opthamalogist was better. I had an eye problem and went to an optham.
I had a long wait, saw him only a few minutes while an associate
optometrist did the test, and paid a big bill. The next time I went
to an optometrist and I was treated much better and felt much more
comfortable. As far as I was concerned, I was getting better care
even though the optometrist didn't have quite the training an
opthamologist had.

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Speaking of 'old' and 'new' doctors, my
mother has gone to the same physician here in Independence for about
25 years. Then about six years ago, Dr. Empson quit taking *any* new
patients at all, and he is just gradually working off his existing
load of patients until he eventually retires. When I arrived here
following my aneurysm, my mother tried to sign me up with Dr. Empson's
practice, but he would not take me. His clinic put me on the case load
of a 'junior' assistant, Dr. Wilkins, which was fine with me, but I
got in the clinic last time around and Wilkins was not there either.
It seems he had been promoted to a management position there in the
medical center. (The clinic is a division of the medical center here,
Mercy Hospital.) So now there is a third or fourth new 'junior'
physician in the practice there. PAT]

Path: telecom-digest.org!ptownson
Date: 8 Feb 2005 18:35:14 -0800
From: EventHelix.com <eventhelix@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Digital Cellular Sound Quality
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 24, Issue 59, Message 14 of 16
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The analog calls require several times the bandwidth of a digital
call. The voice quality was slightly better but at a great expense.

With digital calls, sampling is not the issue. The compression of the
speech sometimes causes artifacts to appear.

Also, loss of packets on the radio link also hurts the voice quality.

The voice coders are getting better with time but you will never get
toll quality voice on cell phones.

Deepa

EventStudio 2.5 - http://www.EventHelix.com/EventStudio
Enter model in plain text;generate call flow in PDF and Word

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