“It’s strange how the worst day of your life often starts just like any other.”
– Joanna Cannon
I prepare for each clinic by reviewing the tests and scans of the patients who will be seen that day. Today, I am dismayed as I read a report for a longstanding patient. The news is not good; his scan shows that his cancer has returned.
Twenty years ago on a day like today, I …
A study published in JAMA Dermatology regarding women’s pubic hair grooming practices has people abuzz. This cosmetic act needs a formal medical name because “clamscaping” just doesn’t work on grant applications. Although why the authors couldn’t go with hair removal, I don’t know. The study wasn’t about styling, it was about removal. The study even made it into the New York Times. And yes, my first …
Every day, millions of women across the United States find themselves in predicaments confronting the quality of their appearance. And their makeup. While this may seem a non-issue in the emergency medicine world, it is something that you, as a female professional, or that your female colleagues, have no doubt encountered. Before walking out the door, you have to consider not just what means of transport to take to …
While visiting a family member in the hospital recently, I noticed the unkempt attire of one of the lab people coming in to draw blood. As she knelt down to better reach my family member’s arm, I noticed her scrub pants were frayed and dirty from her walking on them.
Shortly after I made note of this, one of her co-workers came in the room to see …
Cheryl lost her son Sean to suicide in medical school. Just a few months ago. Her only child. Cheryl didn’t know that medical students were at high risk of suicide — until her son was dead. Nobody warned her.
Rhonda lost her daughter Kaitlyn to suicide in medical school. Unable to recuperate from the pain of her daughter’s suicide, Rhonda died by suicide …
In my previous post, “Have physicians finally joined the working class,” I discussed the changes in the health care system regarding physicians roles in these systems. In this post, I propose two strategies that could help physicians regain some influence over their work and to participate fully not just in the execution of strategy from management but also have an input in creating it.
Building unions
There has …
I have written about pain medicine, previously on this blog, and it generated some spirited responses. Let me be clear that I am completely against all forms of pain, whether foreign or domestic, physical, spiritual, psychic or even phantom. The medical profession has superb tools to combat and relieve pain, and physicians should utilize them, within the boundaries of appropriate use. We now have an actual specialty — …
“Medicine Purple is now rounding at Room 202.” The announcement rang throughout the hallways on the lower pavilion. It was an announcement I had heard many times before, but this time it was quite different. As I glanced in the upper right-hand corner of the electronic medical record of my first patient, the following glared back at me in all capital letters: “ATTENDING: COOPER, JOSEPH DAVID.” I had imagined the …
I am a professor of family medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School. During their third and fourth years, students must complete a four-week clerkship in family medicine. The clerkship includes a “significant-event reflection” project, in which students discuss patient encounters that they’ve found especially meaningful.
Over nearly a decade as a facilitator for these groups, I have heard many powerful and emotional stories. I’ve often felt deeply moved–and admiring …
In my home, we have two conversations: politics and medicine. The most vociferous discussions are around their product, health care. We know doctors on the right and left, Democrat and Republican, boisterous blues, rebellious reds and garrulous grays. Respecting opinions and debate, we love ‘em all. However, no matter on what side of the aisle they stand, which lever they pull, they share one trait. All physicians are deeply conservative. …
I recently had the privilege of speaking to a group of high school students who were interested in becoming doctors. A large number of them were volunteering in my hospital, and their coordinator asked me if I could spare some time to chat with them about life as a doctor and what they should be doing to get into medicine.
I remember as if it were yesterday when I was their …
Dear future doctor,
Please remember. Remember what it feels like to be a patient.
Remember the pain, remember the anguish of the unknown, remember the detours of being referred from one physician to the next, and how you hoped that this doctor would finally be able to diagnose you and empathize with your suffering. Remember the agony of not knowing what caused the mysterious, writhing pain; however, at the same time being …
After finishing three years in medical school, I recently moved over to Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. I decided to pursue an MBA in addition to my MD and will graduate two years from now with both degrees.
I’m not alone. There are 11 MD/MBA candidates in my business school class, including nine from Stanford. Our cohort is part of a small but growing trend towards doctors obtaining business training. The …
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Most everyone has had the experience of sitting across from a doctor, being offered a prescription and walking out the door. Most patients will accept the instructions — maybe ask a few questions — and move on. For some of those patients, the medications are more than a one-off; they are intended to be taken indefinitely.
One of the most common of these medications is a statin. Imagine you exercise four …
I am currently a fourth-year medical student, and I will not accept mediocrity in my life any longer (and neither should you).
When you were growing up did you ever wish for happiness? Did you ask for a good life? Did you want to feel fulfilled and self-actualized? Yeah me too. We are meant to reach for the stars, we are meant to go for our dreams, and we are meant …
In our current health care system, doctors should get to decide what medication is prescribed. Typically, the patient and doctor decide what is the best, then the prescription gets sent off to the pharmacy. When the patient goes to pick up the prescription, often they find a different one instead or are told that their health insurance coverage is not covering that prescription. Instead of receiving the best medication for …
Physicians are known to be masters of self-sacrifice, and self-control. They undergo years of training and make substantial emotional and financial sacrifices until they complete their training. The reward at the end of the road is a fulfilling job where he or she can treat people who are in need and enjoy the emotional, personal, and financial fruits of their labor.
But is this the reality? At a time when the …
As she lay on the gurney telling me she was tired and having vaginal bleeding yet again, I was doing my own biopsy of her medical record.
It stated very clearly that palliative care and hospice had been recommended to her for her end-stage gynecologic cancer. So, why, I’m thinking, highly annoyed, is she now in the ER, late at night, creating problems for me? Why could she just not accept …
The business value of medication adherence tools is coming into focus. For years, I remarked that, while we could create a case for why adherence was the right thing to do, we had great difficulty creating the right financial incentives to move these programs from curiosity to scale. That is changing now with the collision in the marketplace of new payment models and exorbitantly priced pharmaceutical products.
The poster child for …
As the process of applying to medical school and residency becomes hyper-competitive, we medical students often feel forced to pursue our passions only in ways that are “high yield.” It may seem counterintuitive, but the further we go in our medical training, the more inertia we seem to have about giving our time and energy to the everyday people in need. We’re so pressed for time from our participation in …
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