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Palliative care physician and certified physician development coach Christie Mulholland discusses her article “Why every physician needs a sabbatical (and how to take one).” Christie reveals the harsh reality that while sabbaticals …
Sabbaticals provide a critical lifeline for sustainable medical careers [PODCAST]
Modern medicine has a lot to show for all our breakthroughs and biotechnology. At an astonishingly rapid rate, we have built a health care system that can map the genome, replace a heart valve, and monitor vital signs from a wristwatch. All this to show that medicine’s success has always been measured in cures, and in that pursuit, we have forgotten to care. This is where medicine fails.
A cure is …
Curing versus caring in medicine: Bridging the gap in patient trust
The moment the text message lit up my watch, I knew my life had irrevocably changed. I looked down at the miniature screen and found that I could not look away from the gray bubble and the three words that shattered my world: My aunt had passed away. An all-consuming grief overtook me as I processed a reality where my aunt’s boisterous laugh no longer echoed off the walls, along …
Flexible health care funding: Moving beyond disease eradication
An excerpt from Physicians With Lived Experience: How Their Stories Offer Clinical Guidance (APA Publishing, 2025).
“Here is the truth: I have been on a stable dose of Wellbutrin (Bupropion) for thirteen years, and despite being quite a public advocate about self-disclosure and mental health, I have never once said that out loud. If you have ever read anything I’ve written before …
Why a chief wellness officer hid her medication use for 13 years
Our nation and the health care industry have been in shock following the assassination of the CEO of one of the largest insurance companies in the U.S. in December 2024. The reaction to Brian Thompson’s death and suspected shooter Luigi Mangione appeared to have captured America’s attention. The assassination has focused public outrage toward the health care insurance industry and a lack of empathy for the victim and his …
Physician patient advocacy: Fighting insurance denials effectively
If you have watched Stranger Things, you know the premise: A quiet town appears functional on the surface while a darker, parallel world creeps into everyday life, or the Upside Down. The true danger is not just the monsters but also the refusal of adults in power to believe what is directly in front of them. Modern health care is living in its own Upside Down.
The metric trap
In my practice, …
Health care’s Upside Down: Addressing systemic dysfunction and burnout
Last year, at her annual physical, one of my patients told me that February was the hardest time of the year for her. Her husband died three years earlier in February. Her daughter lives out of state and doesn’t visit often. She has a neurologic condition which makes it difficult for her to get around. Her days are marked by TV dinners eaten alone, a phone that rarely rings, and …
How February and Valentine’s Day impact lonely patients
The looming specter of death exerts significant psychological power over the living. Perhaps the most common ways of coping with our persistent death anxiety are to ignore it, actively deny it, or deliberately distract ourselves from it; but removing our protective blinders ultimately enables us to live a more meaningful and authentic life. If we genuinely wish to live well and to die well, we must intentionally develop our emotional …
The specter of death: Why mortality gives life meaning
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Otolaryngologist Alan P. Feren discusses his article “How system strain contributes to medical gaslighting in health care.” Alan explores why encounters that patients experience as dismissive or manipulative often stem from communication …
Systemic strain creates the perfect environment for medical gaslighting [PODCAST]
It was 3:17 a.m. when the trauma pager went off. “Level 1 incoming. MVC. Hypotensive.” The trauma bay shifted instantly from stillness to choreography. Blood coolers opened. Monitors lit up. A resident’s voice tightened as he called out the vitals. The patient was young. Too young. Blood pressure in the 70s. Oxygen saturation falling. The kind of numbers that make the room feel smaller. CT was not ready. Labs were …
In the age of AI, what makes a physician REAL?
I have spent 30 years as a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician in solo practice. In three decades of treating patients, I have witnessed the slow, systematic transfer of health care decision-making from clinicians to people who have never touched a patient.
When I started my career, physicians led health care. Today, private equity firms own hospitals, insurance company algorithms override clinical judgment, and administrators whose primary loyalty is to shareholders …
The cost of clinician absence in the boardroom: a 30-year perspective
At our yearly Christmas medical staff dinner this last year, our chief of staff asked all the doctors present who had been working at our hospital for five or more years to stand up. Quite a few of us rose. He then asked those who had been there 10 years or more to remain standing. After half of us sat down, he upped the ante to 15 years, then to …
An excerpt from Still Life with Stethoscope and Typewriter: Essays and Echoes of Narrative Medicine.
Every Olympic Games eventually produces its own mythology. Not the noble kind, ancient Greeks crowned in olive leaves, but the modern variety, where rumor, technology, desperation, and money form a cocktail best consumed at a safe distance.
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan have already delivered one such legend: the claim that elite ski jumpers were …
2026 Winter Olympics rumors: the truth about ski jumpers and hyaluronic acid
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“Do no harm.” Upon entering medical school, my classmates and I uttered these words with pride and joy, unaware of the deeper meaning behind them. While it may sound cliché, many of us choose to become doctors because we have a strong desire to help others in some capacity. The esteemed title M.D. fortunately allows us to wear many different hats in serving our communities. Medical doctors have expanded their …
Immigration policy and child health: a medical student’s perspective
A man notices it in a moment he did not plan to analyze.
An erection that used to be straight now bends. There is a new ache. Sex feels different, less reliable, more tense. He tells himself it is temporary. He avoids looking too closely. He stops initiating intimacy. And most of the time, he does not say a word.
That quiet delay is one of the most overlooked parts of Peyronie’s …
Peyronie’s disease symptoms: Why men delay seeking help
These days, it is not uncommon to hear complaints from doctors, nurses, and other clinical staff about policies made by “higher-ups.” Stories of physician burnout, frustration with appointment time limits, and dissatisfaction with policy changes are all too familiar. As a medical student, I have often felt this sentiment that “administration is the enemy.”
However, this past summer, I had the unique opportunity to serve as a medical student business intern, …
Why medical students need health care economics
Toward the end of undergrad, I was desperate for money to support myself and feed my figurative babies, which at the time took the form of MCAT prep and medical school applications. This desperation led to some outside-the-box thinking about how to make ends meet.
One of the most out-of-character things I did was work at Williams-Sonoma. My main motivation for working there was that it was right next to a …
From Williams-Sonoma to medicine: What retail taught me about difficult patients
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Board-certified internist with a long-standing focus on public health, tobacco control, and preventive care Edward Anselm discusses his article “The economic case for investing in tobacco cessation.” Edward reveals that while smoking …
Tobacco cessation offers untapped revenue for medical practices [PODCAST]
In his recent executive order, Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets, President Trump directed federal agencies to utilize forced institutionalization of unhoused individuals under the guise of public safety, lambasting evidence-based harm reduction programs in the process. Unhoused people are framed as threats by Trump, engaging in open-air drug use and vagrancy. In response, the National Homelessness Law Center condemned this executive order and projected even worse outcomes due …
Executive order on homelessness: Why forced treatment fails
For clinicians, trainees, and health system leaders, the referral process is meant to connect patients to the specialty care they need. But in everyday practice, this bridge often feels like a maze. Many of us, whether as physicians in training or practicing providers, have watched patients become lost in delays, miscommunications, and inappropriate specialist visits that worsen outcomes rather than improve them.
The consequences of a broken system
In my own experience …
The medical referral process: Why it fails and how to fix it
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