Letter from the Editor: Listening to the Angels on Our Shoulders

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Thankfully, a very small minority of our community runs afoul of the billing laws, but it does bring up an interesting question: What responsibility do we have in the otolaryngology community to police ourselves? In employed hospital groups and academic departments, monthly morbidity and mortality meetings and quality assurance conferences are good deterrents to improper surgical indications. Centralized compliance departments also guard against fraudulent billing practices. 

But what safeguards are there for practices without that infrastructure? Is it enough to rely on whistleblowers? Or should there be a more centralized, national data-driven method to make sure a few bad apples don’t spoil it for the rest of the community? And are there examples from other specialties within medicine that we can draw upon?

I don’t have the answers, but it is food for thought. I remain convinced that none of us started our career with the intention of ever hurting a patient. And as we all struggle with fatigue, burnout, and the financial pressures caused by an ongoing pandemic, let’s please remember to listen to the better angels on our shoulders. Please take care of yourselves and stay safe.    

—Alex