Physician Toolbox

Visiting our patients in their homes is great fun and extremely fulfilling. One of the best parts is that we are forced to rely on our clinical expertise and skills as seasoned physicians. Both of us spend much of our time working in a hospital, where we have access to all the conveniences of modern medicine and the best of technology. In medicine today, it is not uncommon to order a test “just because” it’s available. However, we know as experienced clinicians that most diagnoses can made with a detailed history. Taking the time to get to know the patient and narrow down the possible diagnoses is key. Although we can always resort to referring our patients for fancy tests like MRI’s and CT scans, it’s our skill and experience that often allow us to reduce the use of unnecessary technology.

Nonetheless, we do pride ourselves on keeping our patients out of the hospital and to that end, we recently acquired a new piece of technology: Santa Fe Mobile MD now has a hand-held ultrasound. This nifty device can be helpful in various scenarios, such as evaluating for a distended bladder, looking for gallstones, and characterizing superficial lumps and bumps, to name a few.