{"id":398,"date":"2017-02-01T19:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T01:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/professionoffaith\/?p=398"},"modified":"2017-02-01T19:00:03","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T01:00:03","slug":"faithful-little-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/professionoffaith\/2017\/02\/faithful-little-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Conscientiousness Matters: He Who is Faithful in a Very Little Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

February always feels like a post-mortem on the prior year. I\u2019m wrapping up job-related paperwork and evaluations and preparing to begin to think about starting a plan for gearing up to confront my 2016 tax return.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s always the month I most desire to change my record-keeping habits. If I were more conscientious attending to the details during the year, pulling together these year-end documents would be easier.<\/p>\n

But diligence in the details is, for some professions, a much more serious matter. And there is some evidence that I\u2019m not the only one with something to lament:<\/p>\n

Medical Records Not Always Accurate<\/a><\/p>\n

It sounds appalling\u2013my medical record isn\u2019t accurate?!?!\u2013and there is some reason for concern.<\/p>\n

I have seen first-hand how this can happen in non-life-threatening situations, and I can imagine how the habit carries over into more serious ones.<\/p>\n

"Image<\/a>

Image via Pixabay. Public Domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of my children recently went in for a routine childhood surgery, but for an atypical reason. That is, usually kids get his surgery because they have [the usual symptom]. He did not have [the usual symptom] at all, but had a completely unrelated symptom that made the surgery necessary. Somewhere along the way, though, someone entered \u201c[the usual symptom]\u201d into his chart, and there it stayed, no matter how often I corrected it.<\/p>\n

I actually started counting. Seven times, a healthcare provider said some variation on \u201cI see here he has [the usual symptom]\u2013this should help with that\u201d and seven times I said, \u201cHe doesn\u2019t have [the usual symptom].\u201d And seven times, the speaker said, \u201cBut it says right here . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

What was disturbing was that one of the seven people was the surgeon himself\u2013the one who recognized the [actual symptom] and recommended the surgery on our initial visit. Perhaps he\u2019s the one that wrote down [the usual symptom]. Or perhaps someone else did along the way, and the words on the page that supposed to record the initial conversation obliterated his memory of the actual conversation. The spoken word was drowned out by the written word.<\/p>\n

In any case, I\u2019m fairly certain his chart still reads \u201cPatient complains of [the usual symptom].\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why it wasn\u2019t corrected. Perhaps some of them didn\u2019t have the authority to make changes to his record. Perhaps most of them decided the difference was irrelevant.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t hard to imagine scenarios where the difference isn\u2019t irrelevant, though. And I don\u2019t think I was being unreasonable by wondering whether this inattention to detail was more significant than anyone else seemed to think.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to develop habits of inattention, of laxity, of apathy, that snowball into outright negligence. Conscientiousness requires a daily commitment to excellence, a constant awareness that the work matters.<\/p>\n

Although January is the traditional month for introspection and resolution-making, this month I\u2019m doing it in February: \u201cBe more faithful in the little things. It\u2019ll help with the bigger things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s easy to develop habits of inattention, of laxity, of apathy, that snowball into outright negligence. Conscientiousness requires a daily commitment to excellence, a constant awareness that the work matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2225,"featured_media":399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,10],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-in-the-news","tag-professionalism"],"yoast_head":"\nConscientiousness Matters: He Who is Faithful in a Very Little Thing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Conscientiousness requires a daily commitment to excellence, a constant awareness that the work matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conscientiousness Matters: He Who is Faithful in a Very Little 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