Take the First Pitch

October 2024 | Vol. 68, No. 1
Written by Richard E. Johnson, DO

When I was growing up, I played little league baseball for about a year, it really wasn’t “for me,” so I never picked up the baseball lingo that kids that played from age 5 to 19 picked up and used as “common knowledge” verbiage.

When I got to college (last century) I joined a fraternity, and as most frats do, we played intramural softball. During our first game the “coach/brother” sent me to the plate with the charge to “take the first pitch.” Not really understanding what that meant, I swung at the first pitch, and missed. I thought the coach was going to have a cow. “What the hell are you doing, he proffered!?” To which I declared, “you told me to take the first pitch, so I did.” “No, you, dumb#*@, take the first pitch means to let it go and wait for the next one. Well, ain’t that great, be nice to know the lingo.

Moving forward about 50 years, I was recently discharged from the hospital after a 6–7-hour abdominal surgery with catheter and JP drain and about 20 pages of post op information and instructions. I read through them like a good patient and knew what it all said, my wife/intelligent and very competent caregiver, however, took it all literally and to the letter of the law, which is good, but has its downsides. The information and instructions were general recommendations for many/all related surgeries and had some conflicting information compared to what the surgeon discussed with us at my discharge visit.

I am bringing this up because in this day and age with computer generated and ofttimes EMR/administrative generated (and sanctioned and “required”) information sheets, we miss the fact that not everyone speaks the same lingo.

Having practiced as a solo practitioner for 30 years then as a “hospital-owned” practitioner for five years, I can attest to this fact. For 30 years, on a yearly basis, I reviewed all the handouts and information sheets that I routinely gave to patients to be sure they were still worded correctly and easily (I hope) understandable for my patients. Corrections were made as needed. Then transitioning to a hospital- owned office, the forms were then computer/EMR company- generated and very broad based, and at times factually, a bit inaccurate and sometimes quite confusing. It was an uphill battle to allow me to have my “old” information sheets uploaded into the system and then to allow me to download those information sheets for my patients as needed.

Please review the handouts that are generated by your EMR programs, and any other hospital “required” forms for understandability as well as correctness and if they are not either or both, demand corrections. Remember, the EMR programmers were/are probably not physicians and maybe not even medically trained and have perhaps just “Googled” stuff to put in their EMR databases. And I know it’s easy for me to say because I’m not in the trenches anymore but take an extra few minutes to go over the post-op or whatever info handout you’re discussing with the patient. If you’ve reviewed your handouts and they’re worded correctly they should dove-tail with your instructions and decrease confusion and callbacks, making life easier for your patients, their caregivers and potentially you with fewer callbacks. Please, remember, we don’t all speak the same lingo.