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The role of empathy in improving patient care and decreasing medical liability

Physician

September 23, 2021

Studies reveal that more than half of all practicing physicians demonstrate signs of burnout. Contemporary physicians face tremendous pressures due to a confluence of factors, including balancing heavy patient loads within constrained schedules, the increasing complexity of patient health problems, and increasingly burdensome COVID-related documentation requirements.

These circumstances—and more—challenge physician empathy, and even to some extent dampen it even further. Multiple research studies document a decline in empathy that appears to …

Is passive income a lie?

Smart Money, MD

Finance

September 22, 2021

As a child, I remember watching superstar athletes like Wayne Gretzky glide so effortlessly on the ice and dreaming about how easy life would be to be blessed with innate talent. “Talent would make my life so easy,” so I thought. I had no clue how much work had to be invested to make talent look seamless. A little later in life, I remember hearing the quip coined by Thomas …

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Is passive income a lie?

A Christian physician’s message to Christian vaccine skeptics

Earl Stewart, Jr., MD

Physician

September 22, 2021

I think it is remarkably irresponsible to have a balm and refuse to use it.

I think it is remarkably irresponsible to have a salve and refuse to apply it.

I think it is remarkably irresponsible to have a cure and refuse to accept it.

And you’d think that at some point, reasonably intelligent people would get it. You’ve been somewhere in the sanctuary all your life. You grew up in the church. …

If businesses can mandate vaccines, they should mandate affordable health care, too

Robert Pearl, MD

Policy

September 21, 2021

Earlier this year, Houston Methodist gave its 26,000 hospital employees an ultimatum: Get vaccinated or get a new job. It was one of the nation’s first vaccine mandates. And it was a big, multilayered risk: with legal, financial and ethical consequences all hanging in the balance.

In the end, …

The unvaccinated and a history of cynicism

David Galinsky, MD

Physician

September 21, 2021

The vitriol that characterizes discussions about vaccines, masking, and school policies has been deeply disturbing. I am a physician who is concerned about COVID. At first, I thought that everyone would want to be vaccinated. I thought that the pandemic would cause everyone to isolate and socially distance to protect themselves, their families, and their communities. Now we know it did not turn out that way. As I reflect on …

Self-harm and eating disorders in teens

Richard Capriola, MBA

Conditions

September 20, 2021

An excerpt from The Addicted Child: A Parent’s Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse.

How do you know if your teen has a substance problem? The inability to control substance use despite negative consequences is a classic definition of a severe substance use disorder. But substances aren’t the only thing afflicting adolescents. Another dangerous behavior is invading the adolescent population: process disorders. …

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Self-harm and eating disorders in teens

Treating formula as medicine may increase breastfeeding rates

Sonal Patel, MD

Conditions

September 20, 2021

Currently, there is an outcry against the pressures of breastfeeding, with an underlying backlash against the stigma of bottle feeding. Commercials from formula companies, such as Bobbie, are playing at the hearts of struggling breastfeeding mothers. Touted as an organic European formula comparable with breastmilk, Bobbie is the solution. Famous stars, like Queer Eye’s Tan France, emphatically narrates his decision on choosing formula over donor milk for their family. Over …

5 myths about compassion and patient rapport building in health care

Rush University Series at The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

September 20, 2021

This episode is sponsored by the Rush University Series at The Podcast by KevinMD.

As we enter a year and a half into a worldwide pandemic, many of us working in health care are fatigued, over-worked, and burned …

The degradation and devaluation of nurses

Debbie Moore-Black, RN

Conditions

September 19, 2021

Where do I begin? Maybe at the beginning.

Let’s start with the degradation and devaluation of nurses across this country.

For decades, I lived the devaluing of nurses. Daily huddles from our nurse managers, ER nurses, ICU nurses, and behavioral health nurses. Emails and huddles about downsizing. Nurse-patient ratios. Decreasing nursing staff and increasing patients. ICU nurses typically had a 2:1 ratio and, depending on the patient’s acuity, a 1:1 ratio. But …

The fundamental question that encircles the whole practice of psychiatry

Edward Kai Yan Tie

Conditions

September 19, 2021

Mary (identifying information changed) was extremely pleasant, to say the least.

By the time I met her on the senior unit, she had seemingly befriended even the orneriest of our geriatric patients. She wandered and danced about the unit, speaking with each fellow patient she encountered in a style one nurse called “cheerfully mad.”

Her strategy, maximalist and crude but stunningly effective, was to talk your ear off in a joyful stream …

The unvaccinated are not difficult patients

Joan Naidorf, DO

Physician

September 18, 2021

We’re getting into trouble. With headlines like “Why I am angry” and “Burnout rates at an all-time high,” physicians need to take a moment and breath. Unvaccinated people are presenting as very difficult patients that physicians dread.

In his landmark article, “Taking Care of the Hateful Patient,” Dr. James Groves highlighted four distinct patient types that doctors shrink from. Hateful patients are noted to cause negative feelings in …

There is nothing soft about “soft skills”

Sherine Salib, MD

Physician

September 17, 2021

“Soft skills get little respect, but they will make or break your career.”
– Peggy Klaus

In the late 1960s, the U.S. Army created the term “soft skills” to refer to any skill that does not employ the use of machinery. “The military realized that many important activities were included within this category, and in fact, the social skills necessary to lead groups, motivate soldiers, and win wars were encompassed by skills …

How do we explain the unexplainable? Are there words for the things we’ve experienced?

Rachel Basham, RN, CCRN

Conditions

September 14, 2021

I’m usually good with words. The last year and a half of being a “front line nurse” has left me struggling to find the words. The frustration, anger, trauma, and sadness have so muddied my mind that I find it hard to sort through all of the complexities and put a name to them.

A patient told me the other day, “I know at least 60 people who have had COVID, …

No one is in charge of the free-for-all that is U.S. health care

Steve Adelman, MD

Policy

September 14, 2021

During these solemn high holy days of repentance and reckoning, millions of Jews around the world beseech God to stop COVID-19 from spreading and ending lives. Although it can be soothing and reassuring to believe that the universe is governed by a supreme being who listens and responds to the prayers of sentient human beings, the last 19 months suggest to me that “no one up there is listening or …

To my fellow physicians who are struggling with suicidal ideation

Eliza Shin, MD

Physician

September 14, 2021

Thanks for gathering today in this anonymous detached space. Since it’s unlikely that we’ll ever publicly convene in a circle on metal folding chairs, I’m reaching out through this letter. You can peruse this in private and perhaps see a piece of yourself here.

As a non-practicing physician who speaks openly about my decades of suicidal ideations, I know there’s a thirst for connection on this topic. Colleagues pull me aside …

Stanford Center for Continuing Medical Education launches innovative Physician Leadership Certificate Program

Stanford Medicine Physician Leadership Certificate Program

Is it a badge of honor to refuse the vaccine but choose to die?

Debbie Moore-Black, RN

Conditions

September 13, 2021

You know that if you don’t get vaccinated and you don’t wear a mask, you potentially will die.

You go to super spreader events, big groups at beaches, football games, baseball games … loads of people laughing and clapping, and shoulder to shoulder.

Your refusal of the mask and COVID vaccination almost seems like a passage. Beating your chest. The survivor. It won’t happen to me.

Until you can’t breathe anymore. Delta doesn’t …

The most patriotic thing you can do right now is get vaccinated

Patricia McGuire, MD

Physician

September 12, 2021

I am so tired of the freedom argument with it comes to vaccines. So tired. It didn’t really hit me until I learned more about medicine, government, and public health, just how much freedom is taken for granted.

I get it. I don’t like it when people try to tell me what to do with my body. All my life, I feel like I’ve gotten an onslaught of advice or orders …

How becoming a mother made me a pediatrician

Sara Silvestri, MD

Physician

September 12, 2021

For years, I hated when patients would ask if I had children. I consider myself to be a good pediatrician and trained at a highly rated medical school and residency. I work hard and I care for my patients. I can, however, be socially awkward and did not start dating until later in life. At its most innocent, the question triggered inadequacies about my social and personal life. At its …

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