Improving Diabetes Care: Queries Versus Commands

“How much potassium is in a normal adult?” he asked casually.

My pause could have been because I was stunned, tired, or embarrassed. It was early July, and I was rounding with my attending at the Veterans Affairs hospital nearly two decades ago. I had had maybe an hour or two of sleep. I had just finished presenting an Intensive Care Unit patient who came in with a sepsis-like presentation, and my inclusion of the potassium repletion was, I thought, just for the purpose of completeness. My preparation for his interrogation did not include a review of potassium homeostasis.

When I finally responded that I didn't know, he followed with “Where did you go to medical school?” He never told me the answer on rounds. Two nights …