With burnout on the rise, many physicians are choosing to leave clinical medicine for alternative careers. Other physicians are wondering if it’s worth it to stay in a workforce that does not pull for the well being of their front line workers. Gone are the days where physicians stay stuck, suffering in a practice or career that is no longer fulfilling or worse, causing burnout. Those physicians are considered old-school …
Practicing medicine at the frontlines is hard. It’s damn hard. Every minute you need to be alert, ready to respond to a potential life or death situation, and be called to another important problem. The current medical practice environment — with excessive bureaucracy, suboptimal information technology, and extreme time pressure with patients — adds exponentially to the mix, and can make for a very stressful job. Make no mistake, even …
This article is sponsored by Careers by KevinMD.com.
“Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.” So go the famous lyrics from the theme song for “Cheers,” the iconic sitcom of the 1980s. The name thing can get really personal in medicine — and everyone has an opinion — as evidenced by a plaintive blog posting …
I often wonder what it was like before patient-centered care became a mainstream catchphrase. Was there a poor relationship between the patient and physician in the outpatient setting? Were hospitalized patients’ feelings, desires, goals, and therapy options ignored? It amazes me that we were able to care for patients more than ten years ago without using a “patient-centered” approach.
According to NEJM Catalyst, “Patient-and family-centered care encourages the …
For the past several years, I have been befuddled by patients calling me by my first name (Sara) instead of my professional title (Dr. Jones). At first, I ignored this, but as it became more common, I started telling some of these patients that I preferred being called Dr. Jones rather than by first name. This took some patients aback — probably thinking I was a snob — while others …
I’m an ER doc. I care for patients. All patients: Those who need to be in the ER; those who don’t; those who wouldn’t be there if they knew better. For them, for you and for fun, I’ve got some tips to keep you happy, safe and away from my ER. Enjoy.
1. Never, ever say “hold my beer and watch this!” Besides “I do!” they are the most dangerous words …
My elderly patients miss the days when, in an emergency, they could call their family doctor at home, and they’d be cared for. Retired doctors reminisce about the “good old days” when they were in charge of their own schedules and could prescribe whatever drug or test they felt necessary based on years of experience. While there was a strong doctor-patient relationship in those bygone days, it was not necessarily …
Her name was Callie (identifying information changed). She was four years old. She loved glitter and princesses and anything sparkly. She was affectionate and silly, and I fell hard for her. She was a patient, my patient, on the pediatric oncology unit during my very first ward rotation intern year.
On my first day, I was as scared as any person can be, palms sweating, heart pounding, faced with these tiny, …
There has been a disturbing shift in how medical professionals feel about their career. I almost cringe every time I’m at a party or social gathering now and tell people I retired early from my medical practice. I try not to bring it up.
I don’t cringe out of fear for how they will perceive me or whether they will look down upon me with condescending scorn about how I left …
The new Holy Grail of business, Customer Satisfaction — CSAT to her close friends — is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet customer expectations. In a marketplace where businesses compete for customers, CSAT is a key element of strategy.
Why?
Money.
Satisfied customers buy. They come back and buy more. They tell their friends, who’ll buy too. If satisfied, they’ll return and buy more. That’s gold for …
To treat any condition, the doctor needs to know what it is. You would not expect to have your sore ankle treated with penicillin or to have an appendectomy recommended for your sore throat. While this may be self-evident, I know of at least one patient who had a normal appendix removed because the surgeon did not notice the few telltale blisters that were warning the careful observer that the …
Being a primary care physician, I was afraid to start my own practice. There was discouragement from fellow physicians, hospital leaders, business colleagues, and even patients. Many said that the small practice model was not viable. With insurance mandates, mounting bureaucratic pressures from Medicare and Medicaid, increasing regulations by DEA, higher volumes of paperwork, and the health IT requirements, the task of setting up a private practice with primary care …
If you’ve browsed the internet recently, you probably have noticed the #10YearChallenge social media trend that has taken over our news feeds. The phenomena have individuals comparing a current photo of themselves, to their former self ten years ago. As I thought about how well (or not) I’ve aged over time, it got me thinking about the two most important advice I would give my younger self (knowing what I …
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My fertility journey is not typical. I have not spent years “trying.” In fact, I have spent years trying not to get pregnant!
My husband has two daughters — and a vasectomy, so getting pregnant was a known challenge. Luckily, I like challenges. We went to an infertility specialist, who told us that reversal was not an option for us, and that IVF was our only option. A bunch of testing …
The rotations on adult medicine and critical care are probably the most challenging ones for the residents doing internal medicine residency. No matter how much we try, we tend to feel overwhelmed, fatigued and swamped sometimes. As we progress into residency, we not only gain knowledge and clinical skills but also learn to tackle the challenges of a busy schedule. Below are some of the tips that might be helpful.
1. …
Being a doctor is hard; being a mother is just as hard — if not harder — and being both often seems impossible. Looking back at my medical career it is difficult to fathom not doing both. I was an older, non-traditional student when I came back to college to attempt to complete my prerequisites for entry to medical school. I had just had a baby a few months before …
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How did I miss his hypokalemia? Two weeks into my intern year and my patient’s potassium returned at 2.9. Minutes later, he coded. And I felt responsible. As I explained to my partner how my patient had become pulseless after diuresis of his heart failure, she looked at me and said, “Physicians kill patients, it’s inevitable. Has no one told you it’s part of the job?”
There is truth to this …
No one wants to be sick, especially when no one can tell them what is wrong. In the U.S., we live in a culture where we want instant results; we want easy answers for complex problems. However, in medicine, there are often no easy fixes. Adverse medical events happen, despite our best efforts. For example, a young child was recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes mellitus. While he and his …
Every time I call a friend, all I have for them is more work. I’ve never yet called to say: “I hope you’re having a great day. Why don’t you take a break and have some fun? You’ve worked enough.”
Nope. I only call to give them extra work. Whether it’s 2 a.m. or 2 p.m., I need you to get away from your bed/lover/high horse and come take my patient. …
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We all have either experienced the fears of starting our first job or will eventually do so at some point in our careers. It only happens once for everyone. Those of us who are in the market for a job change will end up reliving some of the challenges in job hunting; hopefully, we all have learned from our past mistakes. As I am advising upcoming graduates during their job …
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