An excerpt from You’re the Leader. Now What?: Leadership Lessons from Mayo Clinic.
What is most important when making a decision: process or expert analysis?
If you’re like many people I’ve worked with, you’re probably thinking, “they both are,” but I’m asking you to pick just one. Which one is …
How to improve decision-making effectiveness
It was fall. Sun-slanted rays filtered into the church from a cold November sky, creating a false sense of warmth. My nephew Dru stood before family and friends who were gathered to remember his mother. He began by telling how, in-between trips to the emergency room, oncologist, radiologist, and myriad other health care providers, he would find himself preoccupied with her eulogy. He worried he would not be able to …
How my sister’s death changed everything
The sound of beeping monitors of ICU, the blood pressure cuff going off on a patient after having detected an unsatisfactory read undisplayable on the screen, hearing a child cry while walking past ED rooms. These sounds, not alien to the ears of a physician, were no longer everyday noises that I could pass by without bothering to register. I could not figure out why such mundane and run-of-the-mill sounds …
My postpartum depression was a stumble, but am I really past the trauma?
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“In the dark radiology reading rooms, only the gentle hum of the computers and the quiet chatter of residents dictating radiology reads break the silence. Among the computers sits Dr. Exner, a senior radiology resident at Hospital …
Meet the emergency physician who writes satire [PODCAST]
You and I are different from who we were yesterday, last year, three years ago. We have been impacted by the pandemic, loss, and stress. We are struggling to bring some semblance of normality back into our lives. War, climate change, racial discontent, political division, and economic upheaval have affected our psyche and health.
We long to tell our stories, first to ourselves and then to those whom we trust to …
We tell our stories, but who will listen?
I recently read an article about reducing physician burnout written by a health care consultant who proposed the creation of an enhanced medical scribe, or “team care assistant” (TCA). According to the article, the TCA obtains the patient’s medical history through “template-driven questions about the chief complaint.” After obtaining the history, the TCA then calls the physician into the exam room to present their findings. The article …
Adding more team members is the wrong answer to decreasing physician burnout
This article is satire.
Physicians today are confronting yet another epidemic, one that affects doctors directly and is not caused by a virus. It is the result of the “patient portal” through which patients send typed messages directly to their physicians. Though the portal has benefits, anecdotal experience suggests that high message volume is having a deleterious effect on doctors’ blood pressure.
I have dubbed this phenomenon “portal hypertension,” despite the objections …
What to do when doctors develop “portal hypertension”
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“To create a healthier, more just, and more equitable world, we must confront the truth, and that requires an act of collective courage. Perhaps there needs to be a whole new consciousness that abandons ideas of reforms …
Public health requires collective courage [PODCAST]
On February 25th, 2022, my father was placed on oxygen a week after I had surgery for a torn Achilles. He was facing his first idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) flare. I knew this day would come; it was only a matter of time. I’ve seen and cared for patients who have faced IPF, but it hit home that our lives would drastically change.
As I concluded the video visit with his …
The reality of being a physician and a son at the same time
Hearing loss can be a real pain in the rear. Aside from its annoyance on friends and loved ones, it can pose a significant health problem. For instance, there is growing evidence linking hearing loss and dementia.
Yes, impaired hearing can lead to dementia, which is an impairment of cognition. Cognition is the mental process that allows one to acquire knowledge and understanding through thought. It is the …
Hearing loss is a significant public health problem
Monkeypox has been in the news since May 2022. Barely recovering from the anxieties of COVID-19, the natural question in our mind is how is this all going to play out? We might not have accurate predictions yet, but almost six months into the outbreak, we have more information that we can rely on.
The graphs below show the number of confirmed monkeypox cases on a daily basis and on a …
Where are we going with monkeypox?
Since the development of antibiotics in the 1940s, patients presenting with an infection could be expected to respond quickly to a prescribed course of antibiotics by their physician. While the antibiotic prescription model has helped countless lives, this paradigm has degraded over time due to the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The net impact is a global health crisis, worsened by continuing the over-prescription and misuse of antibiotics.
The more drugs …
Are antibiotics too much of a good thing?
Getting a medical diagnosis can actually be a huge relief.
I know it may seem counter-intuitive.
Saying “I have cancer,” “I have Parkinson’s,” or “I have depression” definitely doesn’t belong in the same realm as being relieved.
Or maybe it does.
When was the last time you saw a GoFundMe for “gradually progressive neurologic symptoms for 20 years that numerous physicians in many different specialties still don’t understand”?
When did you form a Team Lucy …
The impact of a lack of diagnosis reaches far and wide
Back in the 1980s, I had a longtime patient, age about 30, that came to my office for severe back pain. She previously had some mild back pain and had no orthopedic evaluation. Otherwise, she was in good health without any other health issues.
She could barely walk upright, so I sent her to the orthopedic physician I normally referred my patients to the same day. He sent her back to …
Back to reality when it comes to pain treatment
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“It’s one of the hard things about anesthesiology. A window opens, you work like all get out, doing all sorts of things while the breeze blows in, then it’s shut again. Sometimes, you see your patient once …
Your anesthesiologist cares for you [PODCAST]
I am a nurse. I am tired and defeated. Thursday, I went to work at 7 a.m. after the strike, only to want to leave as soon as I walked into the hospital. We were short-staffed … again. I made an “aware” which is a hospital forum where anyone can report unsafe staffing, hospital conditions, maintenance, or security issues. My aware went to my unit manager where we had a …
All I ever wanted to be was a nurse
An excerpt from The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.
Ours is a culture wholly averse to death and even aging; think of how many products are geared toward erasing or “reversing” the signs of oncoming infirmity, the physical reminders of life’s finitude. Here, then, …
The journey is to find the gift in the challenge
Over the years, I have mentored a lot of trainees. After discovering coaching and seeing my career transform after I started working with a coach, I have become a coach myself. I definitely use coaching techniques with my mentees, but the relationship I have with them is different from the one I have with my coaching clients. Coaching and mentorship are different but complementary approaches to moving your career forward. …
Coaching or mentorship: What is the solution for physicians?
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“Securing prior authorizations is a daily ordeal for most doctors’ offices. Doctors report that, on average, they must get insurance company approvals 41 times every week. Of the authorization requests that are denied, fully 73% ultimately get …
Insurance companies deny medical care. And that’s wrong. [PODCAST]
You may just think differently. Not wrong.
It is a gift to be on a team where people think differently.
However, some leaders want people to all to think like them. And they become upset and frustrated when you think differently.
So we step back and observe why they may be frustrated. We may observe in ourselves why their opinion and approval matter so much.
The discomfort may push you to abort your own …
It is a gift to be on a team where people think differently
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