🧭 FENTON’S WAY
The Two Baskets of Medicine

All of medicine fits into one of two categories:

🅰️ EMERGENCIES
Where the mission is simple: Survive the moment.

This domain is guided by five Mission Essential Tasks (METs):

  • Survive — Maintain awareness; prevent further harm

  • Sort — Triage: Who’s dying, who’s alive, who can wait

  • Stabilize — Move the patient up the survival chain

  • Communicate — Share what’s needed, what’s next

  • Transport — Get the patient to a higher level of care

Once stabilized, the patient transitions to the second category...

🅱️ EVERYTHING ELSE
The complex, ongoing work of diagnosis, care, recovery, and support.

Here, we’re guided by Four Questions — the foundation of this system:

1. Who are you, and who are you becoming?
Identity. Baseline. Goals. Function.

2. Why now?
What brought you here today? Timing. Trigger. Change.

3. Do we know what we’re doing?
We build a Medical ISSUE List — a curated, prioritized, up-to-date set of active issues.
Each ISSUE includes:

  • A diagnostic plan

  • A treatment plan

  • A definition of success

  • A function plan

  • A quality of life plan
    All optimized for greatest Benefit/Cost, as defined by the patient and attending physician.

4. When are we leaving, where are we going, and who cares?
What’s the destination? Who’s accountable?

Why This Works
The structure stays consistent.
Only the urgency changes.

FENTON’S WAY brings clarity to chaos—not a philosophy, but a process:

The process of practicing medicine.

You can’t automate a system that isn’t defined.
You can’t fix what you don’t understand.
FENTON’S WAY gives both the structure and the intent.

Where It Came From

Developed by Dr. Leslie H. Fenton, MD, PhD, FACP, a former:

  • Army Special Forces Medic

  • Navy SEAL physician

  • Emergency room and ICU leader

  • Patient and caregiver

  • Systems thinker and real-world operator

FENTON’S WAY was forged in trauma bays, war zones, classrooms, and kitchens.

Where It Works

These Four Questions are now used:

  • In trauma centers and living rooms

  • In ICU beds and military task forces

  • In briefings, ward rounds, and family meetings

  • In the first minutes of life — and the final ones

It’s More Than a Method

Each ISSUE isn’t just a diagnosis.

It’s a mission statement — with structure, clarity, and a path to action.

This is the language of medicine, reframed.
A mindset.
A format.
A shared map.

Once you learn it, you’ll start seeing it everywhere.