Physician

Ahimsa means do no harm, including doing no harm to ourselves

Physician

May 11, 2021

To be the best healers possible for others, we have to show compassion for and take care of ourselves.

I wrote a previous article published in KevinMD titled, “Self-care is not selfish: It’s imperative to save the practice of medicine.”

Self-care includes doing no harm to yourself.

During our medical training, many habits and thought patterns were deeply ingrained. These thought patterns, while they may have been helpful in …

A physicians discovers the power of mastermind groups

Jeanne-Marie Guise, MD, MPH

Physician

May 10, 2021

“My whole world has changed, but my workplace’s expectations haven’t. I am paying twice as much for childcare and caring for my children’s mental health needs on top of my normal job. This has been going on for a year, but expectations for my performance in the workplace haven’t changed.”.

“I was watching an old home movie of my son’s baptism with my seven-year-old when he turned to me in horror, …

This doctor has post-litigation stress disorder

Maryanna Barrett, MD

Physician

May 10, 2021

I am sure that I have post-litigation stress disorder. It does not actually exist yet as a recognized disorder, but I definitely have it.

You know what else? Countless other physicians have it too.

We don’t talk about it. Besides the fact that lawyers forbid you to speak of ongoing litigation to anyone, especially colleagues, there is such a culture of shame surrounding this subject. Although we now live in a world …

Asking patients to write letters illuminates new aspects of the physician-patient-family relationship

Sneha Mantri, MD, Lana Chahine, MD, and L. Addison Diehl, RN

Physician

May 9, 2021

In 2019, we (authors SM, LC) initiated a research study on the experience of care partners of people with Parkinson’s disease psychosis (PDP). Among other activities, participants wrote a letter to their care recipient’s doctor to the prompt: “Understanding that you know the most about this person, specifically their PD psychosis because you likely spend the most time with them (certainly more time than the doctor gets to spend with …

A nurse is to a patient what a mother is to a child

Farhan S. Imran, MD

Physician

May 6, 2021

I was on inpatient service and had already seen most of the patients on my list. I just had to see one more before I could call it a day and rush out just in time to take my daughter to her tennis lesson. I reviewed the patient’s chart to find out that her cancer had spread to her spine, which had incapacitated her to the point that she could …

A plea for help from the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic

Kristin Adams Forner, MD

Physician

May 5, 2021

I am a palliative care physician in a hospital in our nation’s capital region. Like most urban hospitals, ours has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. My colleagues and I are exhausted and emotionally devastated. We are not alone. Yesterday I learned a friend of mine from medical school, a selfless and compassion-driven emergency medicine physician in Los Angeles, died by suicide. Before the pandemic, between 300 to …

Doctors’ mental health: Don’t wait until it’s too late

Jennifer Reid, MD

Physician

May 5, 2021

One of our most talented residents committed suicide during my psychiatric training. I remember relaxing with him in a VA hospital call room several months before his death, laughing together at some of the idiosyncrasies of our unit attending.

He opened up to me about his doubt in his choice in psychiatry and how he was considering a transfer into internal medicine. Having made the opposite transition just months before, I …

Physicians should heal themselves first

Maheswari Raja, MD

Physician

May 4, 2021

I was trained in delivering bad news.

I knew what to expect.

I knew the questions that would come.

I have learned the stages of grief.

More importantly, I had done this before many times in the past 15 years.

This is my job and my responsibility, I told myself.

I got to work earlier than usual, diffused some comforting essential oils, and did my routine 10-minute morning meditation. Then I slowly sipped my tea and …

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Physicians should heal themselves first

Bloated notes are a huge problem and a time suck

Craig Bowron, MD

Physician

May 4, 2021

In a moment of caffeine-depleted delirium, I volunteered to head the creation of a “notes committee” for my 80-member hospitalist group.

I placed myself on a 72-hour hold and quickly established a group consensus: “Bloated notes are a huge problem and a time suck. I’m glad you [rather than me] are working on this. My notes are fine, though. It’s other people’s notes that are bad. Other people’s bad notes are …

I’m a doctor who had COVID. Did I deserve this? Does anyone?

Dr. Natasha Khalid

Physician

May 2, 2021

During this pandemic, do we blame people for acquiring COVID or do we empathize?

I wonder this as I read a message from my senior, who mentions that people are suffering or in isolation due to COVID because of their own negligence.

My mind reflects back on all the dying doctors who caught the infection while treating the virus. And then, there was the ophthalmologist in Wuhan who diagnosed the virus, the …

Love is the strongest medicine

Steven Eisenberg, MD

Physician

May 1, 2021

An excerpt from Love Is the Strongest Medicine: Notes from a Cancer Doctor on Connection, Creativity, and Compassion.

For nearly two decades, I’ve been telling my oncology patients, with only a little irony, Welcome to your new normal. There’s no getting around the fact that a cancer diagnosis—for you or someone you love—is life-changing. Sometimes those changes are temporary (even …

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Love is the strongest medicine

When an attending was canceled by a resident

Anonymous

Physician

April 30, 2021

I am a psychiatrist who volunteers his time on the clinical faculty of the local medical school. This is a role I have valued over the years that has allowed me to give back and mentor young residents as my senior colleagues did for me during my training.

Recently, I had a chilling experience that has caused concern and pause. I was supervising a first-year resident who was presenting a patient …

A physician’s personal story with opioids

Andy Lamb, MD

Physician

April 28, 2021

I once spoke at a leadership forum on opioid abuse. I was asked to speak about the role of hospital systems in addressing this important issue. As I thought about what I would say, I realized there was very little I could add. The crisis is epidemic, and hospitals are ill-prepared to do anything proactive. It is that overwhelming. Leading medical missions, I learned an important lesson that …

Why quitting medicine is hard

Elijah Sadaphal, MD

Physician

April 27, 2021

This is a message to any medical doctor who is unhappy with their career. The individual reasons for this dissatisfaction will vary. Whatever the issue, it is important to ask, “Is the problem correctable?” If yes, then you must act and secure your happiness. If no, you must consider other options. One uncomplicated choice is to stay in medicine and practice somewhere else. However, you may also be unhappy in …

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Why quitting medicine is hard

Training rural physicians is racial justice

Kristin Puhl, MD

Physician

April 25, 2021

Training physicians to serve in rural areas is a vital piece of modern medical education. It’s also frequently overlooked. Most medical education institutions are in cities, because cities allow us to concentrate the learning opportunities: the specialists, the large hospitals, the high patient volumes. This creates an automatic, unintended bias among doctors—the idea that to be a good doctor, they need to practice in a city. After all, don’t you …

How to stop the anti-science charlatans

Sara Bajuyo, MD

Physician

April 23, 2021

A couple of weeks ago, I received a text from my aunt that included a link to a physician-created YouTube video about the COVID vaccine. The creator has built her fame and fortune as an anti-vaccination proponent. Knowing that her videos are rubbish, I ignored the text.

A couple of days ago, I received the same text message, this time with my aunt imploring me to “PLEASE READ!” I went back …

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How to stop the anti-science charlatans

Save the savers: I’m so tired of physician suicide

Chelsea Bonfiglio, MD

Physician

April 23, 2021

This beautiful man lost his life to suicide recently. He was an emergency physician and an incredible advocate for LGBTQIA health care. He was funny and bright. He posted almost daily with funny quips, stories from the ER and support for his colleagues. He was a shining star in our specialty, and now he’s gone. I never had the honor of meeting him in person, but I knew him well …

When are we going to start talking about patients’ bedside manner?

Anna Gladstone, DO

Physician

April 22, 2021

For years the trend has been a continued critique about physicians and their bedside manner, or lack thereof. It is an important topic as we have moved from a time of paternalistic care to a collaborative model where patients and doctors work together to improve wellness for each individual. This is a patient-centered model, so that autonomy and lived experience is taken into account when making medical decisions. These …

The psychology of fear: How to use it to your advantage

Tomi Mitchell, MD

Physician

April 21, 2021

Fear is something that most of us have felt at one time or another. That feeling of being threatened, when you feel as though your current state is in jeopardy. It’s an instinctive reflex to flee or fight the threat. This instinct has been with us since our earliest moments on earth. Fear can be seen as a driver, too: that force that pushes us into making changes and responding …

Daunte Wright’s death: intersectionality, racism, and ableism

Stella Evans, MD

Physician

April 20, 2021

Most of the world knows by now that on the afternoon of April 11th, a 20-year-old Black man named Daunte Wright was killed by a police officer in an inner-ring suburb of the city I call home: Minneapolis.

Most of the world is watching Minneapolis as Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck, is tried on charges of manslaughter and homicide. Several hours before I typed …

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