A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
I keenly remember the thrill of making my way to the medical bookstore as an early first-year student to buy my first stethoscope.
Although receiving the short white coat at the start of medical school symbolizing the transition into the medical profession was incredibly …
Are physicians losing the healing touch?
At first, it may seem strange that “physician” and “side gig” are even used in the same sentence. After all, the average physician in the United States is already working more than a 40 hour work week and struggling with issues related to work-life balance. As someone who talks about physician burnout and as the founder of the Physician Side Gigs Facebook group, I’ve been asked many times how adding …
Never was I used to having money to invest; it seemed like I always found a way to make income equal expenses. Such was the life of the young, naive 20-something-year-old who had no idea how to build assets.
Going into my 30s, I began to read more, study more, and inquire more when it came to finances. This led me to finally figure out what this investing thing was all …
This physician’s keys to financial freedom
Estrogen is a miracle drug for many women who experience the drenching sweats, sexual dysfunction and frustrating brain betrayals associated with entering menopause. It comes in expensive patches, less expensive pills or injections, as well as vaginal creams or rings. It has gone in and out of favor with the medical community for decades.
Estrogen is the main ingredient in most birth control pills and has been studied extensively in that …
What’s the latest on estrogen use in post-menopausal women?
Recently, pharmacy giant CVS agreed to purchase Aetna for an astounding $69 billion dollar sum. The company allegedly plans to reduce health spending by developing an integrated system touted as “a new front door for health care in America.” This merger is actually an acquisition, entailing transfer of ownership. The central aim of an acquisition is to increase market share, expand the scope of services provided, and improve financial …
The CVS-Aetna merger: millions of lives hang in the balance
As the health care debate drags on, prescription drug costs continue to rise by almost 10 percent annually. It is the rare patient who is spared this expense.
Over the years, I have seen how these costs have affected my patients. At first, most patients had little in the way of co-pays. However, once the local economy deteriorated, co-pays skyrocketed as employers tried to curb their health care expenses. Now, large …
Here’s why doctors must know prescription costs
There are many apt comparisons to be made between aviation and health care. As a (lapsed) instrument-rated pilot, I may have some insight about the system in which planes function on a daily basis in the United States. It is truly an impressive system which is (to paraphrase Don Berwick) well-designed to achieve the safety results that it does. However, the kind of statement that some health care safety leaders …
Health care and the airline industry have a lot in common
There are a lot of TV commercials for structured settlement companies these days. You know, the companies that say if you are cash-strapped but have a structured settlement they will be happy to buy your settlement and give you “cash now.” Some of the commercials are quite clever and catchy featuring everything from operettas to boy bands. After seeing so many of these, one has to conclude that there has …
Structured settlements are ruining patients’ lives
The recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is controversial, to say the least. However you feel about it though, the fact is it’s here to stay, affecting everyone by 2018.
However, in looking at our own situation as a two physician couple (purely from the medical income standpoint), at first glance, it seems as though our taxes would actually go up. In addition, if it’s going up for us, it surely …
How the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affects this two-physician couple
“I made myself a hypodermic injection of a triple dose of morphia and sank down on the couch in my consulting room … I told her I was all right, all I wanted was twenty-four hours’ sleep, she was not to disturb me unless the house was on fire.”
– Axel Munthe, MD, The Story of San Michele (1929)
When people in this country mention the opioid epidemic, most of the time it is …
The other opioid epidemic that we ignore
My car has one hundred seventeen thousand miles on it after just three and a half years. It has taken me back and forth from here to Atlanta more times than I can remember, to the beach, to the mountains I love to hike, and across the country in a seven thousand mile trip four falls ago. It runs well, just like new as a matter of fact. I have …
Ignoring your mental health is risky business
Communication is the cornerstone of good health care. Despite all the external challenges we face with the system in which we work, those few minutes we spend with patients and their families are precious — and are what we will be remembered for. We, therefore, owe it to our patients to be at our very best and to make them the absolute center of …
5 tips to better communicate with your patients
In my off time, as a mom and a physician, I spend a decent amount of time lurking in a rather strange environment, even for the internet. A place so filled with anxiety, stories of ill-chosen spouses and little glimpses of unbridled joy, that you’d think you were somehow inside a taping of the Real Housewives of This-crying-baby-makes-me-hope-that-I-end-up-having-a-dissociative-fugue. You know, *that* place.
Online mommy groups on Facebook.
And, there I am, lurking …
A physician lurked on Facebook mom groups. Here’s what she found.
ADVERTISEMENT
Have you bought a new memory foam mattress recently? Many come vacuumed in shrink bags. Once air gets in the bag, the mattress expands to its normal size. It is fascinating to watch how they expand.
It is not so fascinating to watch a patient expand to their actual size, when they are forcefully squeezed into an enclosed time space like an office …
15 minutes aren’t enough for a primary care visit
When I described my drawdown strategy in early retirement, I stated we will “sell from the taxable account first.” I also plan to collect quarterly dividends from my index funds, but if Vanguard were Burger King and I could have it my way, I’d hold the dividends and take bites out of my account only as needed.
When I discuss the downsides of dividends, note that I …
A physician’s love-hate relationship with dividends. And what he does about it.
Clostridium difficile is a gram-positive anaerobic bacillus which secretes toxins (A and B) that cause diarrhea and pseudomembranous colitis. C. difficile is the most common infectious cause of nosocomial diarrhea. Transmission of C. difficile can occur from contact with contaminated humans and fomites. The organism contains endospores that can survive the acidity of the stomach and reach the large intestine.
C. difficile colonizes the intestinal tract after the normal …
Learn about Clostridium difficile infection with a Medcomic
The controversy over health care reform often boils down to two issues: coverage and cost. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) made significant impact on the coverage issue, dropping the uninsured rate below 10 percent for the first time in the recorded history of the United States, covering 20+ million Americans in the 8 years since it was passed, and putting the United States on a reasonable …
Expanding coverage and cutting health care costs: ideas for 2018
“What’s a DO?” is something virtually every osteopathic medical student and physician have been asked at some point in their training. There is this public misconception that professionals who carry MD after their names are the only qualified people to medically treat their ailments. Any other degree is categorized as “alternative medicine” in their mental schema. Truth be told, DOs, or doctors of osteopathic medicine are just as qualified as …
The non-difference between MDs and DOs
It is December 2017. I have been on the road for the last five months, completing my five months of elective rotations. I am a fourth-year medical student aspiring to specialize in family medicine. I also want to learn procedures, so I did two months of surgery, three months of family practice electives. At the beginning of this process, I had wanted to be a general surgeon, but I ended …
Please change the culture of surgery
I asked a colleague at a recent dinner meeting about his children. They’re all grown, he said, one is actually a doctor. But, he added quickly, “I had nothing to do with it.” His son had chosen his father’s field of radiology, though my colleague similarly disavowed any influence. He did mention, with some relief, that his son was happy with his choice.
About a year earlier, I was catching up …
What is the right reaction for a physician when her daughter goes pre-med?
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
