Lawrence l weed biography of barack

How about sitting with Lawrence Weed, MD, and Donald Berwick, MD, in the same week? Granted my time with Dr Weed was one-on-one for three hours in his living room in Vermont and my time “with” Dr Berwick was as part of an audience of 6000 attendees at his National Forum on Quality Improvement in Heatlh Care in Nashville, TN (December, 2008). I felt privileged to listen to the journeys of these two men who have had such a dramatic effect on how medicine is practiced today.

Dr Weed and Dr Berwick have much in common. Both have a passion for and a vision of how to improve health care. Both have played major roles in improving health care over the past few decades. Both are pioneers and as such have for years endured the criticism of their skeptics and the accolades of their followers. Both are leaders of significant movements that have and will continue to affect health care in the US and around the world. Both provide real solutions to waste in health care. And, most importantly, both want to increase the likelihood of a positive outcome for each individual patient encountering the health care system while at the same time lessening the chances of being harmed.

During my time with these two physicians, I heard both describe with similar language the state of disrepair of our present health care system; however, I found neither was pessimistic about the future. I was struck by the can-do attitude voiced by both—the problem is huge but there is a solution and they optimistically believe it can be attained.

In leaving their mark on how health care is practiced, however, these two physicians have taken two very distinct paths on their journey.

Lawrence Weed, MD

Dr Weed is an innovator in health information management and is best known as the champion for the problem-oriented medical record. Dr Weed described for me how his journey started, when, after years as a disciplined researcher, he was asked

I saw in the New York Times that Larry Weed, aged 93, passed away on June 3rd. In case you don’t recognize the name, he was the father of the problem-oriented medical record (POMR). I am old enough to recall POMR as novel when I was in medical school, and like most innovations, it had supporters and detractors, and those who were willing to give the newfangled approach a shot. The detractors felt that complex patients whose problems were interconnected were ill-served by separating them out, as POMR did, and that such fragmentation of thought would inevitably lead to fragmented care.

But, we students SOAPed away anyhow:
· Subjective – what the patient told you
· Objective – your observations and the labs
· Assessment – how you interpreted all that
· Plan – what you were going to do about it.

The result? One complete SOAP for each problem. Lather, rinse, repeat . . .

Did you know Larry Weed trained here at CWRU and later returned to serve on the faculty? He graduated from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and came to University Hospitals for a combined internship in medicine, pathology, and surgery.

Possibly most important, he met his wife here! Then off for more training and a stint establishing a new program in Maine. He returned as a CWRU assistant professor based at Metro, where he ran the outpatient clinic. During his time here, he developed and refined POMR and began to use computers in medical records, becoming an advocate for their use. He was a tireless and sometimes abrasive, impatient advocate for POMR, too.

History shows that he was ahead of his time.

Reading Larry’s obituary, I thought about the deep and venerable roots of the CWRU culture of innovation, which our LCME visitors noted this spring. We go back to the scientific basis of the practice of medicine, noted by Flexner in 1910. We proceed through the “new curriculum” instituted by Hale Ham, Joe Wearn, and colleagues. We encouraged the likes of Larry Weed with

American judge

John Laurance (sometimes spelled "Lawrence" or "Laurence") (1750 – November 11, 1810) was a delegate to the 6th, 7th, and 8th Congresses of the Confederation, a United States representative and United States Senator from New York and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of New York.

Laurance briefly served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate in December 1798.

Education and career

Born in 1750, near Falmouth, Cornwall, England, Laurance immigrated to the Province of New York, British America in 1767 and settled in New York City.

He pursued academic studies, then read law in 1772, with Cadwallader Colden, the Lieutenant Governor of New York.

He was admitted to the bar and entered private practice in New York City, Province of New York, from July 4, 1776) from 1772 to 1776.

In 1775, Laurance married Elizabeth McDougall, the daughter of General Alexander McDougall.

Military service

Laurance served in the Continental Army during the Am