For a mere biennial fee of $525, I remain part of the medical community with a newly renewed medical license from my home state. I still have time to make a decision on renewal for the state from which I retired two years ago, only because their board extended its deadline three months to allow its physicians to complete the CME that our pandemic made more difficult.
It costs less but …
How to stay relevant post-retirement
After entering Gate D at Fenway Park, John had his temperature taken and verified that he was symptom-free. As he rounded the corner, his friend heard him whisper through his mask, “I think this is real.” He was referring to the calming sounds of a string trio emanating from the concourse, next to the FIELD BOX 54-70 sign. Vaccine day was finally …
For the love of baseball and music: a Boston Hope Music story
In March, thousands of medical students received their residency match results. For most specialties, match rates for graduating U.S. MD seniors have typically remained above 90 percent. This almost certain job security is what allows most medical students to consider taking on astronomical amounts of student debt.
The individualist message is clear throughout medical school: Focus on yourself, your achievements, and hope for the best.
Absent from these …
The rise and fall of Hahnemann University Hospital
“Dealing with my insurance company is making me sick.”
It wasn’t exactly her chief complaint, but it was one of the concerns raised by my patient at a recent office visit. In fact, it has become increasingly more common in recent years for patients to raise concerns about their insurance directly to me — their doctor.
Not only is dealing with insurance companies a time-sucking administrative burden for practices and an endless …
My insurance company is making me sick
There are days I hate being a doctor. OK, let’s be honest—there have been weeks, and with the current pandemic, the whole past year has been an entire theme park of emotional rollercoasters. I think a better description would be to say that there are circumstances where I hate my role as a physician.
Being a doctor is my heart-song. It is my identity; it is my first true passion, it …
Being a doctor is my heart-song
In his novel Buddhism Without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor observed that “death alone is certain and the time of death is uncertain.” This knowledge should guide us in one of our most important decisions: How should we spend our limited amount of time on earth?
Why do you work so hard?
There are many different reasons why people might work too hard. Often they toil out of necessity. …
Put down the knife: A neurosurgeon explains the importance of a work-life balance
Since the national election of 2020, racism at the polls has become a hot topic that Democrats hope soon to remedy with the election reform bill, H.R.1. I imagine many health care practitioners are wondering what is wrong with so many of our political leaders that they can promote laws restricting voting access disproportionately to people of color. Surely, if they took a look at how we handle things in …
Racism and health: the life expectancy gap
It pains me to write this. I am tired of pretending. I simply cannot do this anymore. I sincerely wish you well. I do hope our paths will cross again.
I first gazed at you, cautiously intrigued. Coquettish even. Butterflies fluttered when I thought of you. You left me longing for more details. You captivated my heart and mind. I became obsessed with you, wanting to understand your layers and complexities. …
It has been over a year now since shelter-in-place orders struck fear into many, forced millions into unemployment, and taught us all the meaning of the term “supply chain.” It didn’t take long before the chants of “flatten the curve” and “support our health care heroes” dissipated. Once more was known, many industries figured out to cope safely while others just decided to cope unsafely. The government stepped …
The coronavirus vaccine is not a political or social issue
I write this from the Midwestern United States. My home. A generally underserved region.
I’m a young doctor near the end of my training. My generation, I think it’s safe to say, has in large part bought into the general process of medical education, the natural progression through training, and the accompanying stressors and debts that are a typical part of the experience. Burn out, they say, is at an all-time …
How can we encourage doctors to come home and serve well?
This week a patient, for whom I served as the primary care physician for over many years, died after an extended illness. I had the privilege of visiting her two days before her death, as she weakened and drew closer to her last breath. It was an opportunity to tell her good-bye.
We were close. She was very smart. She had an engaging sense of humor. She loved college basketball. She …
Another lesson learned: This is what gratitude looks like
Leanne, a nurse, sits next to me in the ICU. She says into the phone, “Now, Johnny, you be good for Nana.” We’re only halfway through another 12-hour shift, and she won’t be home until after her 5-year-old son is ready for bed.
Such calls to palliate separation have long been part of the fabric of health care families’ lives. But the pandemic has magnified the frequency and pain of these absences.
Much …
Health care workers get the applause, but our families are essential, too
It seems that the midlife “slump,” “crisis,” or “malaise” phenomenon is actually something that has been studied and written about a lot in the last 40+ years. The phrase “midlife crisis” was originally coined in the 1960s, as explains Jonathan Rauch in his 2018 book, The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50. He describes some fascinating research that shows a definite age-related dip (a U-shaped curve) in happiness …
Physicians and the midlife dip
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Imagine that you’re a physician in the middle of the global pandemic. The life-saving vaccine has just come out, and your job includes administration of the vaccine. At the end of your day, you have 10 extra vaccine doses in an opened vial that will need to be discarded if not used. You know there are not enough vaccines available yet to vaccinate everyone who needs this vaccine as soon …
A physician faces criminal charges for going above and beyond #WeAreDrGokal
On March 16, 2021, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long had a “bad day,” in the words of Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department, and went to three different spas or massage parlors to kill eight people, including six Asian-American women, before being stopped. Had he not been stopped, he may have intended to continue on to Florida to murder more …
More than a “bad day”: Asian-American medical trainees need your support
If you’ve been diagnosed with a condition and the recommended treatment is surgery, there are proactive steps you can take to lower the risk of post-surgical complications and improve the likelihood of a good outcome. First, before deciding to undergo surgery, which always carries some risk, seek a second opinion from a physician who has experience treating the specific diagnosed condition. In most non-emergency cases, undergoing surgery immediately after diagnosis …
Choosing an experienced surgeon and high-volume hospital can impact your outcome
Two years into my surgical training, and five days after the murder of George Floyd, someone called attention to my Blackness in a way I had never experienced.
One of my patients was an older white lady who appeared to be between 70 to 80 years old. I saw her for a routine postoperative visit when it was time to remove her surgical dressing. As I do with all my patients, …
The day my patient called me the N-word
He stood silently. His eyes fixed on us, immaculately dressed in a dark three-piece suit adorned with a gold watch and chain, hair meticulously groomed, a brightly colored bow tie centered perfectly on a freshly starched white shirt, wire collar stays in place, black wing-tip shoes glistening. Gold cuff links and military-like, sharply creased pants, with just a subtle break of the cuff on the shoe tops, completed the picture. …
The world needs more hope-givers. Be that person.
Abundance is defined as “the state or condition of having a copious quantity of something” or “plentifulness of the good things of life: prosperity.”
The massive havoc of the pandemic causes us to shrink in the face of human frailty, morbidity, and mortality rather than feel expansive and abundant. Even the vaccine efforts are enveloped in distrust and scarcity.
As I sit to write this article, I dance between medicine’s possibilities and …
As the world creates a new normal, we must do the same in medicine
The differential diagnosis is a cornerstone of the profession of medicine which epitomizes physicians’ critical thinking skills. It is not an antiquated tradition of by-gone eras. The practice of medicine has been positively impacted in the past century by revolutionary scientific advancements, standardization of medical education, and transformative societal changes. Its overlap has provoked some unfavorable changes in the practice of medicine with the business of health care. The differential …
An ode to the differential diagnosis
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