A medical diagnostic company recently posted the following tweet: “The best way to beat cancer is early detection. A full-body scan will provide you with a look inside your body and peace of mind.”
I wanted to type a reply, but I like to tell stories, and Twitter will only allow 280 characters.
***
A young woman sits on the examining table. Texting. As I approach her, she dangles her legs and checks …
Too many scans is bad medicine
About three months ago, something awful happened. The oncology nurse practitioner (NP) whom I trained for the past two years in my subspecialty decided to seek employment elsewhere in order to have a more flexible work schedule.
My team and I lamented we had a going-away dinner to say thank you for her work. And for the next three months, I trudged through my days in a busy oncology clinic, seeing …
Should nurse practitioners complete medical residencies?
Squid and other cephalopods have the amazing ability to change the color of their skin. In an instant, they can blend into their environment, matching the landscape perfectly to avoid detection. In contrast, they can turn a bright iridescent hue to warn predators or, in some circumstances, to attract a mate.
They do this in a rather complex way. Squid, cuttlefish, and octopus have special cells called Read more…
Being like squid is easy. Don’t be one.
My dearest daughter,
Life is unpredictable. In case I won’t be around one day, here are things I learned from being a doctor and a mother that can guide you always.
1. New level. New devil!
There will never be a time outside of death that life will stand still. Embrace change and know that as soon as you accomplish one goal, you will need new goals and challenges to continue to grow …
A letter to her daughter: 8 things I learned from being a doctor and a mother
If you or a loved one has ever been hospitalized, by day two or three of your hospital stay, you likely remember the doctor visiting you every day but not staying more than seven or eight minutes or 10 to 15 minutes max.
It may have felt like he or she was just “dropping by and laying eyes on you.” A month or two later, you get a bill with the …
A peek behind that 8-minute $300 doctor visit
It all began on Valentine’s Day when I arrived at my office and listened to my messages from the afternoon before. There was only one from a nurse at the state mental hospital. She had just seen, she said, a Mr. Lonnie M. and was calling to alert me (there is a law to this effect) that Lonnie had expressed very hostile feelings toward me, quite specific in nature.
He planned …
When a patient planned to kill a social worker
Coronavirus, a.k.a. COVID-19, is lurking on the edges of the United States. What it will do here has yet to be seen. I was initially very concerned since I work on the front lines in community emergency medicine. For the last week or so, I have felt a little better after reading several articles. I suspect it will not have a high lethality among otherwise healthy individuals. But I’m no …
COVID-19 will expose EMTALA and the physician shortage
I believe in the practice of medicine and enjoy teaching others this amazing art. However, after experiencing nine months of interactions through medicine as the daughter of a sick patient, I struggle with my pride in the profession and fear of the health care system.
My mother would proudly tell all her physicians that her daughter was a doctor. I knew she was proud, but I didn’t believe in using my …
I struggle with my pride in the profession and fear of the health care system
In a young physician’s life, financially speaking, the single most important aspect to financial well-being has nothing to do with money; it has nothing to do with investments; it has nothing to do with budgeting and saving. I think financial advisors and financial planners sometimes miss the mark on what’s really important.
What does it take to be a doctor? I started dating my wife exactly one month before she started …
The most important aspect to a young doctor’s financial plan
During a particularly long stretch of being on call, of spending my days caring for patients, documenting in the EMR, and sleeping – I was spent. I felt like a horrible doctor.
The blooper reel of my medical misadventures ran through my mind – the patient who decompensated before I got to the room, the emergent decision I made, and later regretted, the moments where my patience and compassion waned amidst …
Doctor, how do you define your days?
Readers of my articles know that no one has been more critical of Obamacare’s flaws––particularly over the impact the program has had on middle-class consumers in the individual health insurance market.
And, readers already know that no one has been more supportive of the Medicaid expansion from the very beginning.
Now, the Trump administration wants to give states the option to abolish the open-ended federal funding of Medicaid via fixed block grants …
Supporters of Obamacare should consider this Trump proposal
As the coronavirus spreads, the nation’s leading health official told a Senate committee on Feb. 25 that “we cannot hermetically seal off the United States to a virus.”
The comments from Alex Azar II, head of Health and Human Services, heightened concerns about the effects of the coronavirus in the U.S., which so far has sickened a relatively small number – 57 – of people in the …
As the coronavirus spreads, should unvaccinated people be allowed to fly?
Just weeks into the federal government’s efforts to contain the novel coronavirus, a new California case has exposed weaknesses in the testing procedures that could be masking more widespread reach of the disease.
A woman in Solano County, California, who hadn’t traveled abroad or had contact with another known patient with the illness was diagnosed with the virus Wednesday, raising concerns that cases are going undetected because of the federal government’s narrow …
The problems with testing for novel coronavirus
ADVERTISEMENT
Chances are, if you work for a large company, you received an email like one sent to Volkswagen employees Monday: Coronavirus concerns mean some limits on business travel, everyone should remember to “wash your hands frequently” and stay home if sick.
As the viral illness, dubbed COVID-19, continues to spread, some employers are canceling conferences and limiting travel, checking supplies, and dusting off their emergency preparedness plans, just as they have …
How businesses are handling COVID-19
My identity crisis attempted its first appearance five years ago. I had decided to leave my job as a psychiatrist in an outpatient, community-based practice. My professional role had become incongruent with the doctor I had envisioned becoming. In my misalignment, I had lost clarity in my identity as a physician. I was frustrated and felt ineffective and disconnected from my work.
I suspected that some of my colleagues were struggling …
Core values were key to reclaiming my physician identity
Every day we get bombarded in the news with health statistics. Coffee causes cancer! Coffee cures cancer! And so on. Many of these are meant to grab headlines (and, these days, web page clicks), and the articles they accompany are often very poor at telling the reader what they mean. They often have statistics, and health statistics can be complicated. Sad to say, even many physicians are pretty poor and …
Everyone needs rudimentary statistical training
The first signs are often subtle — missed appointments, unpaid bills, or a once immaculate home that now has an unmowed lawn and dirty dishes on the counter. It’s easy for adult children of aging parents to miss these first signs that their parents need help with tasks they once handled easily on their own. In fact, many older people take great pains to cover up these problems and insist …
When an aging parent says no to much needed help
This is not the career path I set out to practice when I left medical school; in fact, it’s a career path that didn’t even exist. But after making a number of lifestyle choices this is where I find myself today. I am sitting writing this article from the hot, tropical lowlands of Colombia, on the site of Pablo Escobar’s Hacienda where, in a few hours, I will …
Working as a digital nomad physician practicing telemedicine while travelling the world
We were told to wear masks before entering this patient’s ICU room. Entering his room, you could smell his rotting flesh. He was 92 years old.
His skin would slough off if you dared to bathe him.
His decubitus ulcers were raging with infection.
As long as I’ve been an ICU nurse, this was the worst — the smell, the neglect, the disrespect for this man.
He was VIP status.
I always had a problem …
When a wife won’t let her husband die
At nearly every stage in our education and training, we find “our people.” Maybe it’s your table-mate in kindergarten, or the kid with the really cool light-up sneakers in preschool who becomes your best friend. Maybe it’s your next-door neighbor who you play with after school or a coworker from your first job in high school. These people become part of our squad — even if their membership is only …
How to find your squad in residency
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
