I was struck by the difference between my care and that of the rest of the system as I cared for a patient recently. She was complaining of a strange pulsating noise in her ear that had started a few weeks before. We chatted for a while, as I asked about any sinus symptoms: If she’d ever had anything else going on like this, what other significant symptoms she was …
The time to listen saved this doctor
When Colorado legalized marijuana, it became a pioneer in creating new policies to deal with the drug.
Now the state’s surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists are becoming pioneers of a different sort in understanding what weed may do to patients who go under the knife.
Their observations and initial research show that marijuana use may affect patients’ responses to anesthesia on the operating table — and, depending on the patient’s history of using …
Your anesthesiologist needs to know if you smoke pot
As a law student, I recently was a legal extern at a hospital this summer. It’s a crazy thought because when I started medical school back in Fall 2015, my bus would pass through the pick-up/drop off zone at the hospital every single day at 7:43 a.m. I always saw physicians with their long white coats and coffees in hand walking through the automatic sliding doors. I too saw patients …
What this medical student learned as a legal extern
I wrote about this topic a few years back, but the recent outbreak of measles has once again ignited the debate of just what the government has the right to do or not do in compelling individual actions in support of public health. This is an old question, and it’s worth considering it in historical context.
One aspect of the endless vaccine debate is the aspect of coercion some parents feel …
The government’s role in compelling individual actions for public health
It wasn’t even nine o’clock when the screen on my laptop suddenly froze. From that moment until my last patient left the building, my clinic had no internet.
For my part, the day went pretty smoothly, mostly because of some of my own work habits. It also helped that it was a warm, sunny day, and my schedule was on the light side. Others have frowned at my old-fashioned work habits, …
A doctor survived a day without a computer. Here’s how he did it.
In 1902, a smallpox outbreak infected thousands of people across the northeastern United States. That year, in Massachusetts alone, 2,314 people were infected, and 284 died. This was not unusual for early-twentieth-century Massachusetts: The smallpox vaccine had been invented more than a century earlier and had markedly reduced the incidence of the disease, but the diminished threat of illness motivated fewer people to opt for vaccination. City officials …
The history of antivaccination sentiment
When it comes to destroying debt, many of us are familiar with the two most common methods to pay down debt. Many choose the debt snowball method where you pay off your smallest debt first while paying the minimum on others. Once that first debt is gone, you roll that payment into the next. Eventually, you gain a ton of momentum as your debt snowball accumulates. This allows …
A physician’s advice on extra cash flow
I’m a doctor. And, like most medical professionals, I’m a bad patient.
Two years after my last appointment, I got a CTJ, “Come to Jesus” from my doctor.
I called his office for a form. I needed proof that I don’t have tertiary syphilis. For my Thai visa.
Why tertiary syphilis, as opposed to HIV, cholera, lepers or bubonic plague? I don’t know. That’s the power of bureaucracies. They don’t have to make sense. …
Amid the contentious dispute over immunization requirements for children, Kelley Watson Snyder stands out: She has been both a recalcitrant skeptic and an ardent proponent of childhood vaccines.
Snyder, a Monterey, Calif., mother of two, was a so-called anti-vaxxer for many years, adding her voice to those that rejected mandatory vaccinations for school-age children.
She later realized she was wrong and in 2014 founded a pro-vaccination Facebook group called “Crunchy Front Range …
Someone who is both a recalcitrant skeptic and an ardent proponent of childhood vaccines
A few months ago, I realized it was time to have a conversation with my tweenage son that I had been dreading.
It wasn’t where babies come from. It wasn’t about death or illness or substance abuse.
My son, always sensitive and inquisitive, was sitting next to me Googling random things. Then he Googled his dad, and my heart stopped. Because I knew the next search would probably be me.
I haven’t Googled my name …
When Mom is the victim of cyberbullying
I discovered one of the most important leadership challenges in my first leadership position supervising a staff of doctors and nurses at a hospital: Being able to see our own contribution to problems.
I was confident, having been hired because of my skills developing teams. But, shortly after I started, the team began struggling with what I call “reactivity”: behaviors counterproductive for goals and collaboration.
Examples included people getting stuck in arguments …
Are you leading from reactivity or creativity? 4 steps to see your blind spots.
When our kids were in the 5 to 9 age range, we used to buy each of them a souvenir on our vacations. They always wanted the most expensive item in the store, a great big teddy bear that cost $400. We would tell them no, they needed to pick something less expensive. They weren’t happy about not getting their first choice. It was then that we decided that we …
How a surgeon taught his kids the value of money
Claire Elise Boucher, 31, known professionally as Grimes, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, record producer, and visual artist. Her music incorporates elements of varied styles, including dream pop, R&B, electronic music, and hip hop. Since 2018, Boucher has been in a relationship with technology entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Grimes recently became the star of a new Adidas advertising campaign. In announcing this new …
Elon Musk’s girlfriend had eye surgery for depression. Is there science behind that?
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One of my most vivid early memories is from when I broke my collarbone. In a first-grade relay race, kids were running at top speeds in opposite directions, so it was no surprise that I collided into a classmate. I was knocked to the ground and cried in pain. The school nurse called my mother, who came and took me home, carrying me all the way.
Now that I have a …
How a collarbone fracture made this physician remember her past
As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed one morning, I noticed an article with a title starting with: “When Doctors are Wrong” with a picture of a newborn baby with a breathing tube in the NICU. I immediately opened the article and started reading it with interest because my baby also looked this way, so tiny, in the NICU, with lots of tubes all covering her little body.
As I …
A massive smile creased my lips upward as the rumble of the moving truck pushed the miles farther behind. My dream job and life on a quiet lake lay in wait at the end of this day’s journey. Trading in urban life and working two to three weekends every month required little neuronal firing.
The first few years went as slated.
Decent hours, great pay, no call, and a package of benefits …
How the corporatization of medicine saved this doctor’s life
Each spring, thousands of students and residents will relocate for their next career stages facing the same question: How am I supposed to move my stuff? The answer is varied and can be surprisingly complex.
Relocation is part of any industry, but medical trainees, in particular, relocate during a narrow time frame often without any employer reimbursement.
How does your move fit in with other major life events such as a wedding …
Pro tips for residency or fellowship relocation
It’s a funny world we live in. Lots of people make a handsome living, defining their work and setting their own fees and hours with little or no formal education or certification
There are personal and executive coaches, wealth advisers, marketing experts, closet organizers, and all kinds of people offering to help us run our lives.
In each of these fields, the expectation is that the provider of such services has his …
Too many “experts.” Not enough family doctors.
When I first started working on this blog post, the working title was “Different Ways to Make $1 Million in Real Estate.”
However, I realized that if you’re reading this, you’re likely looking for a similar type of life that I’m interested in: a life of financial freedom where I’m also able to make huge contributions to society as well.
Unfortunately, $1 million may not be enough these days to make that …
How to make $5 million from investing in real estate
Did you know that the traditional doctor’s white coat that you probably associate with your physician actually was a look that doctors “borrowed” from another profession? Back in the early days of doctoring, to add some perceived legitimacy to the title physician, the white coat look was adopted from our colleagues in the hard sciences who did actual experiments in the lab. If you recall, what we doctors call a “white …
White coats should no longer be worn by physicians
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