RIP Larry Weed MD
If you haven’t heard of Larry Weed MD then you don’t know SOAP. Yup, he invented the SOAP note. A brilliant guy. If you want more of his story then read this. He really changed the game and for the better. Sorry, for the crude joke but that is what we do here and we don’t want Gomerblog doing it first.
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His minimalist, factual approach was based on the expectation that the physician was interested in providing good care.
The current mess is based on distrusting the doctor, and the need for him to prove every damn little thing.
A: changed the world for the better
Plan: Rest In Peace
To bad the ER’s and hospitalists don’t want to use it anymore. They start with the diagnosis
and then use such a disjointed note, I can’t follow how the hell they arrived at what the patient
had. Some ivory tower B**t**ds had to change a logical method in order to follow the “publish or
perish” paradigm.
Hey, APSO is actually not all that bad, and I see it as the logical progression of SOAP – given the ever shrinking amount of time which we actually have in which to interact with our patients, it helps to be presented with the main course up front. If we have time, we can later dig into the appetizer and dessert. So much of ROS/HPI & PE has turned into an E&M based clickf**k to please the insurance companies that digging through the data to find clinically useful information is a tedious and often unrewarding endeavor. Let’s spend more time with our patients, record what is necessary to insure that we and our colleagues can be on the right track and the same page, and the care that we provide will be the better for it. I think that Dr. Weed would have approved.
Didn’t have a very long life……2002-2017!!!
corrected now
minor adjustment: after A/P: dead you should add R.I.P.
His system came out when I was a surgery resident in 1971. It was called the Weed System at the time. The surgery department and my ortho residency program objected to its use, while the medicine department wanted it used by everyone.
He has a condition we orthopaedists have never seen: asystole….
Under ICD-10 “Failure to live.”
A buddy of mine is an ortho. Before EMRs came out, I offered to get him a charting tool: a rubber stamp that said,”Bone Broke. Me Fix!” He thought it was a great idea.