| KevinMD.com

10 strategies to try when you’re sick of being sick

Patient

June 30, 2017

After sixteen years of chronic illness and even after writing a book titled How to Be Sick, I still can feel sick of being sick. (When I use the word “sick,” I’m including chronic pain.) If you’re as intimately familiar as I am with sick of being sick, you know it how unpleasant it feels.

Here are ten strategies to help you through this difficult emotional time.

1. Start by acknowledging how …

Medication errors haven’t gone away

Jock Hoffman

Medications

June 29, 2017

A 10-year analysis of medical malpractice cases indicates that medication errors continue to represent a significant risk to patients and health care providers, despite myriad efforts to eliminate that risk. For events that occurred beginning in 2003 (12 percent) to those from 2012 (12 percent) the proportion of cases alleging a medication error was, essentially, unchanged. Raised awareness, advances in technology, and millions of dollars directed at improving the medication …

Read more…

Medication errors haven’t gone away

The unexpected impact this patient had on his pediatrician

Niran S. Al-Agba, MD

Physician

June 29, 2017

As a pediatrician, I work to keep children healthy so they can grow up and achieve their dreams. Occasionally, my naïve optimism has gotten the better of me. I especially have a soft spot for angry, defiant children. These children are given my undivided attention and respect, and I expect the same in return. I never call them names, insult them, or label them. On the contrary, I have high …

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This is why the dialogue on the future of health care is useless

Richard Young, MD

Health Policy

June 29, 2017

Our national useless dialogue on the future of health care in the U.S. continues. Trumpcare has a long way to go before it potentially becomes law, so no one knows what it will finally look like. Obamacare is in a death spiral anyway. So the existing financing system will change no matter what.

But once again the two-party scream-at-each-other system is only talking about changes in health care financing. On one side, …

What one good doctor taught this mother about grief

Laura Fanucci

Patient

June 29, 2017

We were brand new to the clinic, looking for a new doctor after our beloved pediatrician had retired. Our three living children are healthy as galloping horses — a simple fact made astonishing after the deaths of their two sick sisters. But they still need well-checks and vaccines and strep tests and a place to call about rashes and fevers and flu.

So here I was, hugely pregnant, waddling in the …

Doctors and patients want the same thing in health care

Robert Pearl, MD

Physician

June 29, 2017

The “doctor-patient” relationship is tightly woven into the culture and history of medicine. But that special bond is under enormous pressure today. And to keep it from fraying, we need periodically to examine the fabric. Last month, the Council of Accountable Physician Practices (CAPP), representing 28 of the nation’s largest and best medical groups in the U.S., did just that.

Annually, CAPP sponsors a meeting in Washington D.C. where it invites …

A two-tier solution to the current health care quagmire

Brian C. Joondeph, MD

Health Policy

June 29, 2017

Despite campaign promises from then candidate Donald Trump as well as from incumbent and new members of Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare, now almost six months into the Trump presidency, Obamacare is still the law of the land. Progress, albeit slow, was apparent this week as the Senate debated their version of a replacement, following the House doing the same two months ago.

Are either if these bills a true …

What a patient taught her doctor about defying death

Linda Girgis, MD

Physician

June 29, 2017

The answer reflected off of her face, and I knew my news would be no surprise.

Nonetheless, the lump in my throat grew as I hesitated to tell her the latest we found on her recent scans. The fact that this was a recurrence of a previous cancer and she dealt with this inhumanity in the past also did not make it any easier.

It was then that Mrs. B spoke up, …

A more careful examination would have saved her expensive procedure

Hans Duvefelt, MD

Conditions and Diseases

June 28, 2017

“Noncardiac chest pain” was Laurie Black’s discharge diagnosis. Her chest CT angiogram didn’t show a pulmonary embolus, her troponins were negative for a heart attack and her nuclear stress test was negative for coronary ischemia.

“So what do you think it was?” she asked while I read through her hospital discharge summary.

“I don’t know. Show me where the pain was,” I answered.

“It started on my back, on the left side, and …

How journalists help doctors fight the opioid epidemic

Sandeep Kapoor, MD

Conditions and Diseases

June 28, 2017

One of the privileges of being a health care provider these days is having access to innovative technologies designed to help save lives. My colleagues and I were recently surprised to discover a powerful tool that could be useful in our line of work: journalists.

I am part of an interdisciplinary team that focuses on finding …

How to prepare your baby for the perfect poo

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Conditions and Diseases

June 28, 2017

An excerpt from Looking Out for Number Two: A Slightly Irreverent Guide to Poo, Gas, and Other Things That Come Out of Your Baby.

Early bowel patterns | What’s normal

As we learned, the poo patterns of new babies don’t settle in until a week or two after birth.

And beyond the evolution of the early poo trifecta, you’ll likely find that poo is slow to get going if you …

Single payer is not a cure for a broken system

Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD

Health Policy

June 28, 2017

California’s state senate’s unipartisan passing of a sweeping single-payer health care bill, the Healthy California Act, has drawn attention to single payer as a solution to the decaying Affordable Care Act. The ACA decreased competition and plan availability in health insurance and leaves patients holding the bag of unaffordable premiums, deductibles, and copays. It’s no surprise that a majority of state residents Read more…

Single payer is not a cure for a broken system

There’s good and bad news for millennials in the Senate’s GOP health bill

Anna Gorman and Kellen Browning

Health Policy

June 28, 2017

Darlin Kpangbah receives free health insurance through Medicaid and is grateful for the coverage in case of accidents, such as when she tore a ligament in her leg a few years ago. “I feel like I’m injury-prone,” said Kpangbah, 20, who lives in Sacramento, Calif. Without insurance, she said, the injury “would’ve been huge to pay for.”

Young adults like Kpangbah were among the biggest beneficiaries of Obamacare, which helped reduce …

When impossible pain is, in fact, possible

Angelika Byczkowski

Patient

June 28, 2017

I had my first outpatient surgical procedure when I was still in high school and needed a plantar wart removed from the sole of my foot. As the doctor injected the area with a local anesthetic, he explained he did these procedures all the time, and I wouldn’t feel a thing. After a short wait, he began to dig out the deeply embedded wart with a hooked scalpel.

With the first …

11 ways to be an doctor and still live your travel dreams

Sightsee, MD

Physician

June 27, 2017

So, you’re a physician with a love of travel — awesome! One week of your salary allows you to travel anywhere in the world (coach, at least) — double awesome! But, as you are acutely aware, there is a catch … a big one. As a full time doc, how do you possibly get the time off to explore new cultures, hike/bike amazing trails and eat/drink around the globe?

As physicians …

Overcoming trainee mistreatment to advocate for our patients

Falisha Gilman, MD

Health Policy

June 27, 2017

“You’re a doctor. You’re a doctor. Goddammit, you’re a doctor, man! You’re a doctor, so say so, and that’s the message, and we’ll follow you,” Jon Lovett shouted to an audience member on Pod Save America. The listener was an internal medicine resident who, in early May, asked how young physicians could better advocate for their patients. I heard this before the House of Representatives voted on the American Health …

Let’s make our field welcoming to underrepresented minorities

Jose Rodriguez, MD and Jessica L. Jones, MD

Physician

June 27, 2017

In response to recent national events, I have often reflected on privilege — what it means, and what I should do about it. Privilege is the freedom to have an advantage without the guilt of knowing that you have it, and not knowing that it is unfair. It is the freedom to say and do things that others cannot. Admittedly, I am male, which comes with certain privilege. I am …

A doctor’s place is in the exam room

Stuart L. Weinstein, MD

Physician

June 27, 2017

An orthopedic surgeon and a neurosurgeon walk into a room …

Unfortunately, this is not the start of a joke. While we would prefer to be sharing best practices and treating patients in our exam rooms, the fact is we’re spending more time than we’d like in a courtroom. Because our medical liability system is broken, orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, OB-GYNs and other specialty physicians continue to find themselves on the receiving …

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A doctor’s place is in the exam room

Pay off your medical school loans for free? Here’s how.

Robert A. Felberg, MD

Physician

June 27, 2017

We are all panicked over student loan debt. The size of the loan can be worrisome — sometimes overwhelming. The average medical student debt is over $160,000, and it’s not unusual to owe $300,000 to $450,000! The compounded interest is growing every day and adding to your anxiety. Most early career physicians state the stress related to paying off these loans is their greatest emotional burden. Think about that — …

Real physician voices, twice a week

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