November

Retirement from professional life is a growing phenomenon as the baby boomer bulge comes face to face with advancing age. In this issue of the BCMJ, Dr Bob Vroom also addresses the topic in his editorial “Retiring gracefully” on page 426. Retirement for physicians means changes on many levels; however, access to the College Library can remain unchanged.

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While many view documentation of our services as time consuming and annoying, it is one of the most important nonclinical requirements of practice. The Billing Integrity Program (BIP) will base an audit decision primarily on the degree of documentation within a medical record.

The Doctors of BC Guide to Fees and the MSC Payment Schedule define the term adequate medical record (Preamble C.10) as follows:

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The BC Drug and Poison Information Centre handled 95 cases of bupropion (Wellbutrin, Zyban) exposure in 2013. Eighty-one cases involved adults, with 22 therapeutic errors, 47 cases of suspected suicide, and 9 cases of misuse or abuse. Sixty-four cases were referred to hospital and 22 were admitted to critical care. There was one death. There were 11 exposures in older children and adolescents, including 9 suicide attempts. More than half experienced moderate to severe effects and two patients were admitted to critical care.

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References

I first heard George Santayana’s warning “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” while I was in high school during the Second World War.

With June 2014 marking the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn for Scottish Independence, the 100th anniversary of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination (which sparked the First World War), and the 70th anniversary of D-Day (the greatest land invasion in history, which finally end the Second World War), we are reminded to heed this advice—especially given the current state of our society and the world.

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