Picking the Joint

So, here's where it comes out on the Teaching Hospital v. Other Good Hospital debate.

If you are dealing with something where you have a life expectancy statistic:

• do the homework
• go with the best hospital for that area of disease
• to which you can have reasonable access.

On the other hand, if life expectancy isn't really an issue:

• do the homework
• go with the hospital that has an established practice in that area of disease
• to which you can have comfortable access.

Teaching v. non-teaching is not necessarily the driver. A very smart doctor I was with the other night had several examples where the teaching hospital was not necessarily the best in town.