Medical education

2,303 articles · Since 2007

Articles, page 90

It is perfectly fine to be emotional in front of patients

October 4, 2013Oct 4, 20133

Medicine offers you a front-row seat on life. Meaning is all around you. When you can see it, it gives you a sense of gratitude for the opportunity to do this work. -Rachel Naomi Remen The first-year medical student cried…

Medicine offers you a front-row seat on life. Meaning is all around you. When you can see it, it gives you a sense of gratitude for the opportunity to do this work.
-Rachel Naomi Remen

The first-year medical student cried openly during the session. Not hard, but enough to be embarrassed.

“I’m really sorry,” she said, “but this is one of the things that scares me most about going into medicine. I cry …

The fallacy of the current resident duty hour rules

Akhil Narang, MD

October 4, 2013Oct 4, 201316

Discussions of resident duty hour reforms reached the point of ad nauseam a few years ago. Everyone had their say -- program directors (“In 2003 we instituted an 80 hour work week, in 2011 we switched to 16 hour shifts,…

Discussions of resident duty hour reforms reached the point of ad nauseam a few years ago. Everyone had their say — program directors (“In 2003 we instituted an 80 hour work week, in 2011 we switched to 16 hour shifts, what’s next – online residencies!?”), senior residents (“What? I have to write H&Ps again? I don’t even know my computer password!”), interns (“I thought I was done with cross-covering after this …

Our wellbeing is tied to that of our patients

Natalie Wilcox

October 4, 2013Oct 4, 2013

I don’t have time for this, I thought as I attempted to walk the twenty minutes from home to my Mind-Body Medicine class at a ten minute pace. I felt a sharp cramp in my abdomen, reminding me that I had just wolfed down dinner without taking a break for enjoyment or digestion. By the time I reached the medical school building the sky was dark, my face glistened with …

Real physician voices, twice a week

Free, and one click to unsubscribe.

6 tips for women physicians just starting internship

Linda Brodsky, MD

September 30, 2013Sep 30, 20136

My introduction to internship was during my hooding ceremony at graduation when the revered Dr. David Wagner hooded me and told me that internship was a time to become “intimate with disease and the suffering caused.” “You will live with…

“You will live with it so that it becomes so much a part of you that you instinctively know what to do, what to expect, even without sleep, food or outside contact.”

Filled up with this …

The price for improvement sometimes outweighs the benefits

Joyce Ho, MD

September 30, 2013Sep 30, 20134

After getting off a 15 hour call day, all I want to do is write. These past 2 weeks death has been on my mind a lot, more than it ever has been. I have always known that physicians counsel…

After getting off a 15 hour call day, all I want to do is write.

These past 2 weeks death has been on my mind a lot, more than it ever has been. I have always known that physicians counsel patients and families on dying, but actually being the one to do it is entirely different.

How do you tell someone that their best medical option, the best thing you can offer …

All doctors should be able to tell a patient’s story well

Miranda Fielding, MD

September 29, 2013Sep 29, 201310

An op-ed piece this past summer by Verlyn Klinkenborg in the New York Times decried “The Decline and Fall of the English Major." As I read it, I reflected on my own experience in medical school and beyond, and I…

An op-ed piece this past summer by Verlyn Klinkenborg in the New York Times decried “The Decline and Fall of the English Major.” As I read it, I reflected on my own experience in medical school and beyond, and I think that Mr. Klinkenborg’s message is one that medical school admissions committees should be hearing loud and clear.

Despite the fact that doctors are faced with increasing mounds of paperwork …

As I held this man’s icy hand, my paradigm shifted

Amanda Xi, MD

September 28, 2013Sep 28, 20135

It was a quarter past six in the evening. The day team had just completed their signout to us. As we sat quietly along the periphery of the trauma bay getting oriented to our list of patients, a small army…

He was rolled into the first slot. From behind the desk, I tried assessing how serious the injuries were, but the …

Learn to do other things besides medicine that will engage your brain

Wes Fisher, MD

September 26, 2013Sep 26, 20132

Three years ago, in the midst of all that was happening with health care reform, I thought about if I'd ever recommend medicine to my daughter. I thought and thought about that issue and looked deep inside myself for reasons…

Three years ago, in the midst of all that was happening with health care reform, I thought about if I’d ever recommend medicine to my daughter. I thought and thought about that issue and looked deep inside myself for reasons one might still choose this profession, then penned “The Top Ten Reasons to Be a Doctor.” It is, by far, the most popular post on my blog, having been …

Does the amount of interns’ time spent in direct patient care matter?

Paul Bergl, MD

September 25, 2013Sep 25, 20134

Recently in NEJM Journal Watch General Medicine, Abigail Zuger reviewed an article from the Journal of General Internal Medicine in which researchers examined how medical interns spend their time. The results from this time motion study might be concerning but…

Recently in NEJM Journal Watch General Medicine, Abigail Zuger reviewed an article from the Journal of General Internal Medicine in which researchers examined how medical interns spend their time. The results from this time motion study might be concerning but are not unexpected. The investigators found that interns on inpatient rotations spend only 12% of their time in direct patient care and spend only 8 minutes daily with each patient on their inpatient services. Dr. Zuger notes this …

Don’t blame millennials for the drop in board exam pass rates

Robert Centor, MD

September 23, 2013Sep 23, 20134

You have to love the blogosphere. The latest big issue concerns lower ABIM pass rates. Here are a series of blog posts worth considering. Dumber Doctors? One concern that has a ring of truth to it is that young doctors…

You have to love the blogosphere. The latest big issue concerns lower ABIM pass rates. Here are a series of blog posts worth considering.

Dumber Doctors?

One concern that has a ring of truth to it is that young doctors have become great “looker-uppers,” and have lost the sense of what it’s like to actually read and study medicine. While doctors enter the profession with a commitment to lifelong learning, some of

…

Medical societies’ role in improving leadership in medicine

Suhail Raoof, MD

September 22, 2013Sep 22, 2013

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own. - Benjamin Disraeli In 2009, when I was president-designate of the American College of Chest Physicians, a prominent…

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
– Benjamin Disraeli

In 2009, when I was president-designate of the American College of Chest Physicians, a prominent physician, educator and outstanding mentor, who had recently died was honored by her colleagues. One of her junior colleagues, who had never met …

What does a modern medicine intern do all day?

Edward Pullen, MD

September 13, 2013Sep 13, 201337

What does a modern internal medicine intern do all day (and night)? It turns out they spend 40% of their time at work using a computer, another 20% on other aspects of patient care that is not in the presence of the patient, 15% in educational activities, 5% on basic needs like walking around and eating, and only 12% in direct patient care. Direct patient care includes interviewing patients, examining …

Redesigning residency training: The evidence is lacking

Justin List, MD

September 1, 2013Sep 1, 201339

Three-year program residents graduating in June 2013 like me represented a unique cohort in medicine. As interns we experienced the 2003 ACGME duty-hour restrictions and the 2011 ACGME changes as residents. For example, I took thirty-hour call with a resident my intern year and ended residency with a dizzying iteration of a mixed call/shift system composed of multiple handoffs, residents, and interns. But this story is a call to more …

For medical students, learning to keep their emotions aside

Holly Yong

September 1, 2013Sep 1, 201314

Flowers and bees. By no means is that very telling of my current life. On the contrary, I get glimpses of different times of the day when I go into patients' rooms and look out the window or if by…

Flowers and bees.

By no means is that very telling of my current life. On the contrary, I get glimpses of different times of the day when I go into patients’ rooms and look out the window or if by chance the anesthesiologist decides to open the curtains in the OR (yes, this hospital has windows in its ORs!).

So this topic of flowers and bees is very random. But it just …

Women physicians in academia: The academic versus the biological clock

Linda Brodsky, MD

August 31, 2013Aug 31, 20136

Undoubtedly, those pursuing a career in academic medicine have a tough time line. In most medical schools, somewhere between the 7th and 10th year, depending on whether the academic clock was stopped for pregnancy, the fate of the academic physician is decided. During these years when women have the biologic clock ticking, they also have the “up or out” academic clock ticking.

This rush to create academic contributors is pure insanity, …

Dissection is as much exploration as it is self-evaluation

Roheet Kakaday

August 31, 2013Aug 31, 20135

We had our first human dissection recently. We gloved up, scrubbed up, and wielded a scalpel - the key to opening the secrets hidden below our skin. Our donor, an older gentleman who died of cancer and gave his body…

We had our first human dissection recently. We gloved up, scrubbed up, and wielded a scalpel – the key to opening the secrets hidden below our skin.

Our donor, an older gentleman who died of cancer and gave his body to the advancement of medical education, lay on his back. He was abnormally frigid and unnaturally rigid – cold and stiff to the touch. His face remained shrouded with a white …

Reflecting on the final year of pediatrics residency

Chad Rudnick, MD

August 31, 2013Aug 31, 20134

Now in my final year of residency in pediatrics, there will be a lot of “lasts.” Since the time we are kids, we often remember our different “lasts,” especially when it comes to school. During the back-to-school rush at our…

Now in my final year of residency in pediatrics, there will be a lot of “lasts.” Since the time we are kids, we often remember our different “lasts,” especially when it comes to school.

During the back-to-school rush at our primary care clinic, I had the opportunity to talk with several rising senior high school students who will be starting their “last first-day of high school” this week. I vividly remember …

Why are there so few women physician leaders?

Linda Li

August 24, 2013Aug 24, 201340

In July 2011, I made the decision to defer matriculation to medical school for a year. While I was hoping to relax in Philadelphia before entering a lifelong journey in medical training, what I got instead was one of the…

3 months after I decided to defer medical school, my aunt was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She was immediately hospitalized and …

I am an orphan: A medical school without a family medicine department

Seth Rosenblatt, MD

August 24, 2013Aug 24, 20137

I am a fourth year medical student that attends an institution that does not have a department of family medicine. Currently there are only 10 such allopathic institutions in the country. When I tell colleagues and friends that I intend…

I am a fourth year medical student that attends an institution that does not have a department of family medicine.

Currently there are only 10 such allopathic institutions in the country. When I tell colleagues and friends that I intend to enter family medicine they say, “oh primary care?” While yes, it is true that family physicians obviously practice primary care, I am disheartened that my colleagues do not know or …

You have to develop thick skin in medicine

Joyce Ho, MD

August 23, 2013Aug 23, 201318

An attending once told me, “You can’t please ‘em all.” And it’s true. Sometimes in medicine, you just have to keep your head up and remember the bigger picture of why you are in this field. A few months ago…

An attending once told me, “You can’t please ‘em all.” And it’s true. Sometimes in medicine, you just have to keep your head up and remember the bigger picture of why you are in this field.

A few months ago I did my internal medicine sub-I, which is a rotation medical students take in their fourth year when they are expected to perform on the same level as an intern. I’ve …