When Elvis Presley rolled up his sleeve and received the polio vaccine backstage at The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, most Americans knew about it. At the time, the only stars hotter than rock ‘n’ roll itself were Presley, the genre’s de facto king, and Sullivan, the host who brought its biggest headliners to the American people.
By 1957, polio incidence dropped by 85 to 90 percent because …
High pitched alarms, low pitched beeps, the rhythmic inhale and exhale of the ventilator – those were the sounds in my emergency department one year ago. There were no kids running down the hall, no friends making light of their 50-something-year-old friend whose LeBron James delusions resulted in an ER visit and sutures, and no, not even worried family members.
Texas, like much of the country, was headed for …
Like most, our family decided that we had outgrown our current home a few years ago and wanted to move into a larger house that offered more square footage and land. It had been nearly twenty years since living in the house we have owned since the end of the residency, and the house-hunting effort seemed more bewildering and confusing than two decades ago. At the time, I was too …
An excerpt from Act of Negligence. Copyright © 2021 by John Bishop. All rights reserved. Published by Mantid Press.
Beatrice Adams
Monday, May 15, 2000
“Morning, Mrs. Adams. I’m Dr. Brady.”
There was no response from the patient in Room 823 of University Hospital. She was crouched on the bed, in position to leap toward the end of the bed in the direction of …
In the last year, amidst COVID-19 news, animals have gained their place: cats harboring the virus, pet abandonment and, paradoxically, rising adoptions. Cats and dogs are now in the spotlight. I’m a physician, and my personal animal-related COVID-19 story changed the way I practice medicine.
During lockdown in 2020, we decided to adopt a kitten. As both animal abandonment and adoption were on the rise, we brought home a three-month-old orange …
With the COVID-19 pandemic inflicting havoc on everyone, there is no doubt that physicians and other health care workers are most affected. The looming fear for yourself and your family adds to the current burden of responsibilities you encounter and conquer every day.
When the pandemic started in 2020, the struggle was about finding a cure and controlling the spread of the virus. With the advent of vaccines in 2021, the …
In the “Show-Me State” of Missouri, physicians receive their licenses from the Board of Registration for the Healing Arts. Seriously! This quaint term harkens back to a time when newly minted doctors had a relatively easy time realizing their desire to meld compassion, knowledge, and skill in order to relieve human suffering.
Armed with credentials suggesting that we have the right stuff to avoid doing harm, many of us are drawn …
Toward the end of my clinical career, I didn’t feel like I had control over much at all. The patient safety issues loomed large. We used ridiculous workarounds for broken processes. The constant vigilance to provide excellent care in a suboptimal environment was exhausting. I didn’t see anything I could change. Based on my work with physicians as a coach, I think that the sense of powerlessness and being a …
Programs and applicants displayed incredible adaptations during the 2020-2021 virtual residency interview season despite the adversity they faced due to COVID-19.
Moving forward, virtual features may be integrated with traditional methods for a more equitable and favorable experience. We present here a discussion on the pros and cons of the 2020-2021 “virtual” residency interview season — and ways of hybridizing virtual and in-person practices that reimagine modern interviewing and improve applicant …
“Something’s wrong with Eddie.”
In four words, my entire wedding day collapsed around me. I’d just arrived at a beautiful Gothic chapel in a rented 1950 Rolls Royce, mom and dad on either side of me, prepared for a picture-perfect first look with my groom. As his mother’s words echoed in my ear, I immediately thought of all the scenarios that could be easily remedied so we could move forward with …
In my first year as an attending hospitalist, I personally discovered what Hippocrates realized millennia before, “Life is short and the art long.” Clinical reasoning is an intellectual labyrinth that can only be mastered with deliberate practice, introspection, and perseverance.
However, I soon found that spending hours poring through manuscripts and cases was not only cumbersome, but often counterproductive. It dawned on me then that athletes faced a similar predicament, one …
Most of us have heard the phrase “success is about who you know,” and that couldn’t be more true. The people we surround ourselves with are a direct reflection of our life and success. One thing that affects this is emotional intelligence, or EQ for short. It’s not just about how smart you are; it also has to do with your ability to understand and manage your own emotions and …
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of assisting more than 2,000 distressed physicians – some with burnout, others with “rough edges,” still others with psychiatric conditions or misuse of drugs and alcohol. Some of these doctors were still functioning well; others had lost their licenses and their livelihoods, hoping against hope that they would somehow be able to return to medicine. Linking all these physicians is a shared passion …
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Maybe it’s a testament to a hardy relationship that there was no resulting argument. Without thinking, I blurted out, “You are so sexist!” I could immediately tell by my husband’s face, his upper eyelids and eyebrows lifted a bit, his mouth freeze-framed in a small “o” — my exclamation surprised and insulted him. Maybe it was a completely unfair assessment; after all, he was standing at the sink, his hands …
1. You will be underestimated. This can look like many things: Little jokes about how young you look, having to correct how others say your name, having your orders questioned or not completed.
What got me through this was reminding myself why I was there: I am Dr. Patel here to take care of Patient X, and this is what we need to do. Make sure your badge works where it …
The mission of medicine is to heal the sick. When cure is elusive, it is to relieve distress, and always to comfort. All of us who became physicians had our reasons, but we had to have a genuine interest and ability in science, and an appreciation of people as individuals living in families and societies. We had to be willing to work hard to learn and to keep up with …
Health care systems in the United States are beginning to emerge from the devastation of the pandemic. Since the existential threat of COVID-19 first hit in March of 2020 and the waves kept rolling across the country, doctors, nurses, and other clinicians put themselves and their families at risk to save others.
Clinicians were thrown into situations for which neither they nor their institutions were prepared. Like combat, the pandemic created …
Doctors have a few dirty little secrets. We have the highest rates of suicide amongst all professions and are in desperate need of mental health reform.
For those who don’t know what it’s like to work in this area, it can be difficult to understand the pressures that doctors face daily.
Doctors live their lives balancing an intense workload with long hours, often without any time for themselves or their families. Many …
One of my clinic patients recently asked me to administer his intramuscular medication injection. I appreciated the vote of confidence but had to tell him he was mistaken in thinking that my skill would surpass that of our nurses’.
“Trust me,” I told him. “You’re in better hands with them.”
It reminded me of the time, some years back, when I inadvertently found myself “impersonating” a nurse for a school field trip. …
When I’m working in the hospital, I always find it interesting talking to patients about their medical history and experiences with outpatient physicians. I recently wrote about our broken primary care system. In fact, I’ll be stronger than that: Our primary care system is a tragedy, and it’s reflected in the comments I receive from patients. This is despite the best efforts of an amazingly dedicated number of doctors, …
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