The patient looked at me and said that he did not remember the name of the specialist, only that she was a “woman doctor.” As this was completely unhelpful, I pondered the fact that a doctor who was male is never referred to as a “man doctor.” Why is it that woman physicians need the added label, as if the norm is a doctor who is supposed to be a …
Is the end of disparities in medicine near?
Last November, we wrote an op-ed for STAT, as medical students, lamenting how politicized our future profession has become in recent years. In the aftermath of a divisive election that we argued may well have been a “referendum on the Affordable Care Act,” we implored policymakers and other stakeholders to take politics out of health care before attempting to reform it. We believe that partisanship has infected …
The vision forward for health care should be bipartisan
Last month, thousands of medical students donned their white coats as they took their first steps into hospitals nationwide to begin clinical rotations. This marks an important transition from the classroom into an actual inpatient setting to demonstrate the knowledge they’ve accumulated over the past two years. For most students, this means pretending to hear and correctly identify heart and breath sounds while agreeing with whatever the attending says. During …
10 things that weren’t advertised to me before I started medical school
Owning a business is not some pie in the sky deal where you take a phone call when you make the turn at the country club every day. The public at large, however, thinks that is exactly what business owners do.
Owners are the people that collect money while others work right? They are rich people that just happened to be rich, so they bought a business for other people to …
Traditional private practice needs to change
I am an interventional pain physician. I spend most of my days doing spine injections with a fair amount of kyphoplasties and spinal cord stimulators thrown in as well. It seems to me that these are minor procedures that shouldn’t evoke anxiety in patients, but they do. Patients get nervous. They get anxious.
I am also a singer. I had the privilege of being classically trained through my college years. Like …
This doctor sings to her patients. And the results are beautiful.
There is a feeling that you get when you’re out at a dinner party standing and smiling at strangers as they walk by you — a temptation to rest on the “wow” factor of your medical training. Partly because peacocking is inherent to social events such as these, but partly because you fear that you’re inherently boring to people outside your field. The surest way, you think, is to announce …
A medical student confronts life outside the hospital
A tired but beaming mom greeted me as I entered the room. In her lap was a content appearing, slightly chubby, cherubic faced baby.
“This is Caleb … isn’t he beautiful” mom gushed. “He is named after his dad …” but then added in a softer voice, “but I’m not sure how much he plans to be involved.” Mom’s smile waned for a moment but quickly came back. “Looking forward to …
Why a pediatrician does what he does: Lessons from Caleb
I had a great day in the office today. Not that I came up with any brilliant diagnosis nor cured anyone. I was able to just be a physician. No time wasted on the phone with insurance companies. No prior authorizations to do. It was a reminder of how much I love my job. I love my actual job — the one I trained for — being a physician. Listening …
Our noble profession is being destroyed by legislators and administrators
In an era of increasing transparency in medicine, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has been publishing data annually on payments to individual physicians since 2014. The database, officially called the Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data: Physician and Other Supplier Public Use File, has been a window (albeit a cracked and opaque window) into the practice patterns and reimbursement of individual physicians.
It includes most payments for services …
Compare your own practice patterns to the national average. Here’s how.
Medical and surgical research is breaking boundaries at an astounding pace. From genetic modification and stem cell therapy to robotic and 3-D printing technology, scientific advancement is finding novel, unique and unprecedented solutions to complex, challenging diseases. Indeed, such is the rate of change that I am certain the last eight years of my surgical training in the UK will likely be rendered obsolete within the next twenty years of …
This frontier of medicine and surgery has been largely ignored for many years
I am a child psychiatrist who is also a patient, a mother of patients and the wife of a patient. I have lived all sides of health care and appreciate the complexity that is our American health care system. After a recent move to a different part of town, we decided to find a new pediatrician for our daughters.
I knew that we had several good options near our home. When …
A letter from a parent to her child’s pediatrician
I’ve had some of the most wonderful experiences of my entire medical training working with kids and their families. And this, to me, is not surprising. After all, I envisioned myself as a pediatrician long before I ever entered medical school.
However, I remember that more frequent news of declining vaccination rates at one point temporarily gave me pause: What would it be like to take on the tremendous responsibility of …
Why the anti-vaxxer label makes this medical student uncomfortable
Last night, my son was reading a book that was required summer reading for 6th grade. This book was published over 30 years ago. When he got to a sentence that used the word “retard,” he stopped and innocently asked, “Mom, what does that word mean?”
At first, I was shocked that he did not know the meaning, but as I thought about it more, I realized this term was no …
Food allergies are frightening, not funny
At the beginning of this year, I bought a ukulele. I started intern year at a sprint, like anyone does, arms full of hope which was quickly extinguished, lost in an atmosphere so devoid of hope that all of it flew out of my arms to settle into places so far in between it might as well have been floating in the vacuum of space.
The cloak of physicianship burdens upon …
A ukulele helped this physician get through intern year. Here’s how.
The rise of the Internet has changed many things in the world of the customer. Now, in the age of the online consumer, a person can search for not only the exact item or service he or she wants, but read hundreds of reviews on that particular item or service. Thanks to Yelp and a host of other online rating sites, a person can find a reputable painter or contractor …
Online physician reviews: Patients are the ones who will suffer
I had the pleasure of traveling to Rochester, Minnesota for a wedding this summer. Minnesota is home to more people from Somalia than any other state. My home of Columbus, Ohio is also a hub for people from Somalia. As a pediatric resident, I take care of Somali-American children and work with Somali American healthcare providers every day.
It was surreal, then, to set foot in a state recovering from a …
Minnesota and measles: Andrew Wakefield targets refugees
Charlie Gard was a one-year-old boy who had a rare genetic disease leaving him blind, comatose, and unable to breathe on his own. This metabolic disorder can be fatal and has no known cure.
Charlie’s parents wanted him treated with experimental drugs in the hope that a miracle would happen. As reported in the press, the British medical and legal community considered this care futile and blocked …
Planning for the end of life: What baby Charlie can teach us
When I was a medical student, trying to forge my path on the clinical wards as a third year, there was a lot to turn me off the idea of a career in medicine entirely — sleep deprivation, early mornings, late nights, standing for hours on rounds, subsisting on diets of hospital graham crackers and off-brand peanut butter. However, what frosted me the most was constantly playing 6 degrees of …
Stop the abuse of hierarchy with these 5 tips
As you look at the above image, please let me ask you a simple question: “What do you see?”
Do you see a sick man lying on a bed with a friendly looking doctor standing by his bedside?
Do you see only men in the picture and wonder, “Why not women?”
Do you see a clinical setting of an engaging sketch of a doctor and …
We look at the same picture but see different things
We sat in the office of the intensive care unit under fluorescent lights, both staring at computer screens covered in vital signs and labs. It was the summer of my second year of residency, and I spent it entirely in the intensive care unit. There were two of us on call at night. Half the nights we would spend shooting the shit about life, and the other half we spent …
Physicians put up walls. But they feel everything.
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