Physician

The medical illiteracy epidemic

Physician

October 14, 2019

This past August, I attended the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) District VI meeting in Wisconsin. The theme of this year’s meeting was “Bringing it Back Home,” with a keynote presentation focused on developing the emotional habits to influence others and “embody the inner attitude of a leader.”

After a day of much self-reflection, I decided to stop by the poster presentations during a break between the major talks. …

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The medical illiteracy epidemic

Physicians need moments of reflection throughout their days

Navpreet Sahsi, MD

Physician

October 12, 2019

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between them.”
– Achilles Charles Debussy

Silence is an important part of our everyday lives. Yet, we often don’t consider its critical importance in helping us to reflect on what we’re doing. This is especially important in medicine where we’re so busy sometimes that we forget that what we say and do actually has huge implications on people’s lives.

This is even …

We have to do better than DNR tattoos

Fred N. Pelzman, MD

Physician

October 9, 2019

Returning from my week of vacation, I was greeted by the usual stack of mail, faxes, forms to be signed, throwaway journals, and a fully loaded group of in-basket messages that had piled up in the electronic medical record that needed attending to.

One of the pieces of mail was an unsolicited package with a bright red label on it, along with …

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We have to do better than DNR tattoos

Being oversensitive to others’ opinions can be harmful

Ariela L. Marshall, MD

Physician

October 9, 2019

We all want to get home as quickly and safely as possible at the end of the day. The other day — as I braked for a red light and turned my right blinker on — I not only looked to see if cars were coming from the left but also checked my rearview mirror.

In a moment of introspection, I suddenly wondered: “Why am I doing that?” What difference would …

Burnout in fashion and medicine: A fashion designer turned physician compares notes

Hisla Bates, MD

Physician

October 8, 2019

“Fashion Is Moving Too Fast, and It’s Killing Creativity,” by Veronique Hyland, talks about burnout in the fashion industry. As a former Fashion Designer turn physician, my curiosity was piqued. If you substituted the word “medicine” for “fashion,” the title would be just as relevant to the medical industry, as it is to the fashion industry. Yes, medicine is moving too fast, and it’s killing creativity and our doctors. Burnout in the fashion industry stems from the need to …

Advice to a pregnant surgical resident

Lauren A. Umstattd, MD

Physician

October 6, 2019

As a profession, we’ve yet to standardize maternity leave and breastfeeding allowances for women. Given the length of medical training (seven-plus post-graduate years), timing (prime reproductive years) and slow increase in the ratio of female to male surgical residents, females choosing to start families during training are particularly afflicted.

We just celebrated my son’s first birthday. I had him during one of the busiest years of my surgical residency, and it’s …

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Advice to a pregnant surgical resident

What it means to be an attending physician

Mary Braun, MD

Physician

October 4, 2019

Dr. Ryme had been retired at least thirty years from medicine when he met me, his last pupil. I was a freshly minted doctor, and he became the first teacher of a new course at my new school called “Life as an Independent Doctor.”

At our first office visit, after telling me his life story, he quizzed me, “And furthermore, Dr. Braun, you’re an attending physician now. You are no longer …

20 minutes isn’t long enough for an office visit

Fred N. Pelzman, MD

Physician

October 3, 2019

As many of you know, if you’ve read my columns regularly, once a year the whole family escapes from the city, and we travel up to New Hampshire to stay at the lake house that’s been in my wife’s family for over 100 years.

A modest wooden house perched out over the water, situated just right for sunset viewing, for a few …

This doctor defines himself as a Christian, not a physician

Jeffrey McWilliams, MD

Physician

September 29, 2019

What is life? It’s the cumulation of the daily processes all wrapped up into one, filling the void of each day. These processes coalesce hour by hour, filled with demands, expectations, current crisis, and bills to pay. Life is a full-contact sport, each hour brimming with all-encompassing activities, expectations, and trivial pursuits. We live every second to its fullest, squeezing every ounce of information and productivity only to repeat it …

Who actually owns your medical records?

Linda Girgis, MD

Physician

September 25, 2019

I was in a discussion with a group of patients about how difficult it is for patients to get access to their own medical records. It was initiated after one of my patients was refused copies of her recent hospitalization. There is much confusion out there about who actually owns the record and how it is allowed to be accessed. Most people are aware of HIPAA, the regulation set into …

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Who actually owns your medical records?

In medicine, find the beauty in what is common

Andrew Ross, MD

Physician

September 25, 2019

“The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.”
– Osler, “Aequanimitas”

Recently, my family and I were leaving a restaurant, and in so doing, we crossed a large parking lot filled with a seemingly endless number of pebbles. My youngest daughter, whose hand I was holding, suddenly pulled away from me. I stopped short, about to reinforce with her the importance of holding hands in the parking …

How pneumatic tubes symbolizes our health system

Fred N. Pelzman, MD

Physician

September 24, 2019

About once or twice a day, everyone on our hospital’s computer network gets an emergency message that scrolls across the bottom of our screens, highlighted in the colors of danger and warning.

They include things like a notification that a particular data system is down and that a backup on paper will have to be used for documentation, or the hospital …

To extinguish burnout, bring back physician autonomy

Christina Dewey, MD

Physician

September 24, 2019

In his article, “Medical education needs to stop burning out students — now,” Augustine Choi suggests the culture of medical education is responsible for increasing numbers of depression and burnout among medical students, and suggests that more programs are needed to address self-care and wellness in order to build resilience.

While I agree that mental health treatment should be readily available and easily accessible to those in …

Seniority is the worst metric for health care leadership

Travis Bias, DO and Ashley Ramirez, CPNP-AC

Physician

September 23, 2019

Health care delivery in the United States is being led by practitioners who have ascended to leadership roles primarily through years of loyalty to their organizations. But as burnout worsens and affects the youngest clinicians to the detriment of the system, is this the appropriate cadre to shepherd us towards necessary system transformation?

We share two stories that …

Hair is undoubtedly the politician’s crowning glory

Joe D. Haines, MD

Physician

September 23, 2019

It all started with John F. Kennedy’s campaign for the presidency. After eight years with President Eisenhower’s baldness and Vice President Nixon’s receding hairline, the American public was ready for a change. Kennedy had great hair, which he flaunted by appearing bareheaded at his inauguration. A new political maxim was established that day; to win in American politics, it’s not what’s in your head, but what’s on your head that …

An American doctor in Rome

Susan Levenstein, MD

Physician

September 21, 2019

An excerpt from Dottoressa: An American Doctor in Rome.

When I migrated from the banks of the East River to the Tiber shores the path was strewn with bureaucratic boulders, land-mines, and pitfalls. I offer the tale of my odyssey as an object lesson to would-be fellow cosmopolites in that …

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An American doctor in Rome

The orthopedic objectification of women

Stephanie Atkinson, MD

Physician

September 21, 2019

A recent uproar in Twitterverse regarding the publication of certain images has sparked further debate after the response from publishers. The images represent scantily clad women with socially “ideal” body-types, seductively eyeing the camera and would, unfortunately, be commonplace in glossy magazines meant to sell products using these women’s sexual appeal. Body positive activists in society, for some time now, have been campaigning industry to stop this damaging and exploitative …

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The orthopedic objectification of women

A psychiatrist closes his practice

Michael Dorfman, MD

Physician

September 18, 2019

After practicing psychiatry and behavioral health for nearly 25 years, I’m done. I feel sick, and especially sicker from my occupation. Not merely burned out, but ill. Primarily mentally.

I’ve always had complex post-traumatic stress disorder. And depression and generalized anxiety, and many other diagnoses from the DSM. But, I’ve covered my illnesses so I could go to work and help so many people. Least of all myself.

My mother had chronic …

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A psychiatrist closes his practice

7 questions every doctor asks about locum tenens

Bill Heller

Physician

September 18, 2019

When it comes to locum tenens, doctors have a lot of questions. Maybe you even have some of your own. But first, let me ask you a few:

Did you know that there are more than 50,000 doctors working locum tenens in the U.S.? Or that 90% of health care facilities use locum tenens each year? Or that 21% of residents choose to work locum tenens right out of college?

Despite its …

How provider-in-triage systems in ERs compromise patient care

Keith Corl, MD

Physician

September 16, 2019

If you’ve needed emergency care in the last few years, you probably encountered this situation: Soon after entering the emergency department, you were asked to go to a triage area in the waiting room where a doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant asked you a few questions and ordered some diagnostic tests while you waited.

That’s a …

Physician

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