In Marc Seigel, MD’s book, False Alarms: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear, Dr. Seigel relates that despite the hype in the media about exotically terrifying diseases, like mad cow disease, is misplaced with the public. Your risk of contracting mad cow makes the odds of winning the Powerball Lottery seem attainable!
I remember one patient in particular who came into my office at least every other month with a concern about a skin keratosis, convinced she had skin cancer. Well, I understood that a close friend recently had a basal cell cancer removed, (without untoward sequella or recurrence), but that didn’t stop her from working on a tan in the summer, and maintaining the tan in the winter from a tanning booth. Besides that, she was a chain smoker. I’d reassure her that the lesion du jour was benign, (often peeling the keratosis off with my thumb nail… this would be thumbnail-surgery… never could find the right code to bill for this), and that she didn’t need to worry about skin cancer if she decided to avoid UV radiation and besides, as long as she continued to smoke, she’d be dying of lung cancer or heart disease way before she had time to die from a basal cell cancer. Yet, she continue to fret over what she thought was imminent skin cancer, all the while continuing to tan and smoke.
It must be human nature to worry over the inconsequential and irrelevant while the real issues, the life-threatening issues go unchecked.
I’ve seen client hospitals with declining marketshare somehow think that the key to the success that eludes them will be found through a new logo design or a letterhead that an army of expensive consultants are working on. Meanwhile, the customer service problems that got them into the decline in the first place sink to even lower levels.
I’ve seen an executive fire a compliance officer because of perceived shortcomings that the compliance officer had been pointing out for months to only have the solutions denied by the very executive. And he wondered why the new compliance officer didn’t do any better!
If your boat is sinking, it’s not the time to be overly concerned about polishing the brass fittings and varnishing the teak. Prioritize concerns based on eliminating things that will kill you or your business first. “First things first,” depends on prioritization. “Most important things first,” may be more prudent.
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