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Please tell us your cosmetic secrets. We promise not to tell.

Physician

March 10, 2020

I live and work in Los Angeles, one of the plastic surgery capitals of the world. Quite a few of my patients have “had a little work done” — the blandly euphemistic term you’ll hear for plastic surgery makeovers of all kinds. That’s fine. Plastic surgeons have children to feed too.

The problem is this: many of my patients want to convince everyone that their “look” is entirely natural. They don’t …

Should we avoid exposing residents to coronavirus?

Eric Bressman, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 10, 2020

The arrival of the novel COVID-19 to the U.S., and the inevitability of its eventual spread, raises an interesting question: Should we avoid exposing residents to the virus?

Before we try to answer this question, we should start with some important qualifiers. While a good deal about this novel virus remains unknown, the majority of cases appear to be low risk, particularly for the …

Renewal is what we need during residency training

Anonymous

Medical Education

March 10, 2020

The need for a refreshed perspective on life and practice, a renewed sense of the concerns of our patients, and an appreciation for the subject matter: This is what so many of us need while in residency training. There are rare moments in the midst of it all when a renewing of sorts takes place, is noticed, and makes a small difference. Let me share one of those moments with …

The right support system makes all the difference for physicians

Stephanie Wellington, MD

Physician

March 10, 2020

In the neonatal ICU, a baby dies from necrotizing enterocolitis or NEC. It’s not the first nor the last time I’ll experience death during my medical career. Doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, surgeons, and the rest of the team spent the days prior to his death implementing medical interventions and procedures, hoping to arrest the process. Two surgeries, multiple blood transfusions, antibiotics, drips to support the blood pressure, intubation, and ventilator …

Entitlement, arrogance, and isolation in modern-day medical practice

Cristina Carballo-Perelman, MD

Physician

March 10, 2020

I recently read a medical school commencement, delivered by a physician, that was both inspiring and sadly reminiscent of what physicians should aspire to throughout their careers.

This physician relayed how patients throughout her training and career had provided her with moments of clarity, helping her identify the “why” she chose a career in medicine. She went so far as to describe how a group of patients saved her from choosing …

Practicing oncology during COVID-19

Marc Braunstein, MD, PhD

Conditions and Diseases

March 10, 2020

Being an oncologist in New York, having recovered from the trauma of flooding from Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath that ensued when hospitals were flooded in 2012, my anxieties are now heightened again over the global threat and uncertainties surrounding the novel coronavirus.

Daily emails from administrators at my institution seek to both reassure as well as prepare us on the front line of health care to deal with the specter …

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Practicing oncology during COVID-19

What COVID-19 taught me about autonomy

Anna Gaddy, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 10, 2020

I came back from a family vacation to Italy one day before the first case of novel coronavirus was reported there. Two days later, the CDC issued a Level 3 travel warning for visitors to Italy. Eight days later, and six days after returning to work, I got a fever.

I live in Indiana, where no cases have been diagnosed, and our protocols are still green. When I self-reported my symptoms to …

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What COVID-19 taught me about autonomy

What prevents coronavirus? A pathologist grades COVID-19 precautions.

Judy Melinek, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 10, 2020

COVID-19 is here, and it isn’t going away. The SARS-CoV2 virus, and the disease it causes, has entered the ecosystem of human pathogens and is running up numbers that make it appear to be heading into the realm of the pandemic.

Let’s look at how health care workers and patients alike can mitigate the damage …

On-demand doctors: Are we becoming medical waiters?

Annie Moore, MD, MBA

Physician

March 10, 2020

Seven years ago, I vividly recalled a patient saying, “It needs to be as easy to schedule with you as OpenTable.” For most health care systems, this request is now a reality. Yet, how far has the restaurant metaphor moved into patient expectations?

Recently on a closed Facebook physician group, a post discussed how to convince patients they do not benefit from antibiotics when they have a respiratory virus. One theme …

Love in the time of coronavirus

Mrinali Shetty, MD and Yuvraj Chowdhury, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 10, 2020

“The weak would never enter the kingdom of love.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

As the medical community grapples to come up with an appropriate response and protect our patients from this latest pandemic, I cannot help but wonder how the mighty COVID-19, measuring all of 0.1 microns has come to affect us doctors on an individual level.

Unlike the high acuity inpatient setting, clinics are more easygoing and give …

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Love in the time of coronavirus

Dear patients: Please show up on time

Katie Klingberg, MD

Physician

March 9, 2020

There is constant tension to remain on-time working in a primary care clinic, seeing patients every twenty minutes back-to-back. It takes an incredible ability for the front desk staff, medical assistants, and the physician to be able to keep this flow running smoothly only to have it be derailed by the late patient who does not understand how their actions affect everyone else after them.

I currently work in a system …

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Dear patients: Please show up on time

Continuing medical education: Why it’s important and how to make it effective

Christine Lau, MD and Collette Williams, PhD, RN

Medical Education

March 9, 2020

With the escalating pressures on hospitals, health care facilities, and practitioners to be cost-effective, it is increasingly difficult to justify spending money on education and training. Education and training are expensive when adding together the costs of curriculum development and educators. While finding the right person for the job is important in getting the job done, most, if not all, management would agree that the “right” person includes appropriate education, …

What makes health care workers superhuman

Eric Tian

Medical Education

March 9, 2020

“So, the next step in the history taking process is to define the pain. You start this by asking for site, with questions like, “Where are you experiencing the pain? Can you pinpoint the site or is it more general? Does the pain radiate (spread anywhere)?” And if the pain is on one side of the body, remember to ask about the other side – this is important. Got …

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What makes health care workers superhuman

Is medicine a minefield of gender discrimination and abuse?

Danielle Reznicsek, MD

Physician

March 9, 2020

I am a 57-year-old female physician, and I remember an incident that involved a cardiologist on the other end of the phone, roughly fifteen years ago. I had recently started work as a hospitalist, and the cardiologist and I had never met. He clearly didn’t pay attention to my introduction, because when he heard my female voice calling from one the hospital floors to tell him that the twenty-seven-year-old patient …

The idiot’s guide to coronavirus from an emergency physician

Rada Jones, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 9, 2020

1. Wash your hands like your life depends on it. Because it does. Not only for Corona, but for the many germs you’ll acquire from touching elevator buttons, doorknobs, or somebody else’s hand. Or the dirtiest thing on earth: money: Everybody handles it, and nobody washes it. Except for the mob. And me, when I forget it in my pockets.

2. Stay home if you’re sick. Same with your children.

3. Disinfect frequently touched …

A critical moment that resulted in a permanent, devastating consequence

Cullen Ruff, MD

Physician

March 9, 2020

An excerpt from Looking Within: Understanding Ourselves through Human Imaging.

It started as a routine weekend shift, reading studies on patients in the hospital and the emergency department, when the phone rang. Jessie, the nuclear medicine technologist, spoke on the telephone, his matter-of-fact tone slightly colored by …

Can empathy be taught, or is it innate?

Okechukwu Anochie, MD

Physician

March 8, 2020

In medical school, I was taught to sit down at eye-level when speaking to a patient, ask them how they’d prefer to be addressed, make sure to ask questions in an open-ended manner to allow patients to express themselves, and interject with “that must be really difficult for you” or “I can only imagine how that makes you feel,” as a way to show empathy and foster better connection with …

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Can empathy be taught, or is it innate?

Health care and sick care are interchangeable

Mercy Hylton, MD

Physician

March 8, 2020

Does anyone really want health care for all? I promise this is not a political rant.

Americans, of any political persuasion, should not be misled by the implications of health care for all: It does not mean medical care for all. Providing a card stating you have health insurance is only a nominal solution, provided by politicians, who are looking for a superficial fix. Our problems are more complex than such …

Medical error disclosure programs: Old habits die hard

Gail Handley

Patient

March 8, 2020

A radical change is emerging from within our health care system: Rather than deny or defend medical errors, some hospitals are acknowledging them upfront. This enlightened response has been gaining ground since 2001 when the University of Michigan Hospital introduced one of the first medical error disclosure programs: the Michigan Model.

Hospitals that adopt the model also promise to explain why the error occurred, apologize, offer fair compensation, and learn from …

Start a hospitalist program with these 6 steps

Rahulkumar Singh, MD

Physician

March 8, 2020

Just to give you my background, I manage a large hospitalist program for a busy downtown community hospital that is part of a large health system consisting of a total of 29 acute care hospitals in the same geographical area.

One of the reasons why our team was hired recently to manage this hospitalist program was to change the existing work culture, which had resulted in poor team performance, low physician …

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