“Tell me something you love.”
I love warm chocolate chip cookies — straight out of the oven.
“Thank you. Tell me something you love.”
I love to read, to write, to dance. I don’t know yet if I love medicine.
We were gathered in a ballroom, a group of doctors and dancers, to explore the art of medicine through movement. I sat cross-legged, looking into the eyes of a person I did not know, …
I want to learn how to love medicine
The landscape of health care has changed nearly beyond recognition in the past decade. If you’re a veteran of the profession, you’ve seen the other side of things — you once had the chance to live the dream, to swim in the pool of autonomy and self-employment, to call the shots and act on behalf of the patient without the constant supervision of bureaucracy. If you are new to the …
The effect of private equity in medicine
Nobody punched me in the face. Maybe I would have preferred being punched in the face, though. And yes, I was bullied. I’m not going to talk about my own experience in this post however, because I already have post-traumatic stress disorder from the experience. I’m not ready to revisit it in detail yet.
I don’t need to talk about myself to tell you about bullying in the medical arena. I …
These are the stories of how physicians are bullied
We are human, we are not indestructible. We have feelings and emotions that can get hurt, probably more than the average person based on the careers we have chosen. Yes, we will pass up on our well-being (such as sleep, hygiene, exercise, relationships with family and friends) to be there for our patients. To receive our critical training to be able to care for others. This is our sacrifice, and …
We’re doctors, but we’re humans too
So last week, I did the bravest thing I have done in a very long time — I quit my job. Yes, I put in my 60-day notice. This was my dream job post service in the U.S. Air Force. I had dreamed of working in this establishment for months before my service time was up. I could not have been happier when I joined their team, a group practice …
Why this physician quit her job
The upgraded responsibility and authority given to starting residents is both a blessing and a curse. Suddenly, the need for co-signatures vanishes. There is greater autonomy in clinical practice. Residents get paid. However, residency can also be a time of significant stress. Residents are forced to navigate the demands of preceptors, other residents, medical students, nurses, patients, family members, and administrators. Residents have very little control over what they do, …
10 ways to make residency less stressful
“It kind of strips you of any pride that you have. It was very humbling.”
As a care manager, Mary helps patients follow their care plans by coordinating medical visits and community resource referrals, but this was the first time Mary shadowed one of her patients out in the community. At the food bank, Mary watched her patient, who was living with diabetes, receive one box of macaroni along with other …
How to be aware of patients’ non-medical needs
Imagine spending days or even weeks in an emergency room without treatment for a broken leg or painful kidney stone.
Patients in psychological crisis across the country are living this exact scenario. Long waits in an ER, hospital room or prison for an inpatient psychiatric bed, otherwise known as psychiatric boarding, are their unfortunate reality.
Rewind to over 50 years ago — as institutionalized patients were gradually integrated into communities, the availability …
Let’s talk about the psychiatric boarding crisis
I began practicing as an internist/nephrologist in the early 1960s. Having rented an office in Los Angeles, I introduced myself to the local medical community and set out to build a practice.
With a growing family, a mortgage and an office to support, I was hungry for patients. Hospital emergency rooms were good referral sources, so I took ER call at three different hospitals.
Late one Friday night, I got a call …
You can’t always expect a miracle, but you can always hope for one
A colleague recently sent me a link to the American College of Cathopathic Physicians a new organization whose mission “is to protect the professional autonomy and advocate for a full, broad scope of practice for DNPs as a ‘cathopathic physician’ completely equal in every way to our MD and DO counterparts.”
I was, I admit, so stunned by the statement that I thought the whole thing might be an elaborate joke. It was only …
Not all doctors are physicians
Burnout has been a descriptive term for years, but lately, psychologists and others have assigned it specific characteristics with a view toward being able actually to study and measure it. One common definition of burnout is a state of chronic stress that leads to physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, detachment, and feelings of ineffectiveness. The PICU environment is often one of high stress, so it’s a place where this …
Burnout in pediatric intensive care physicians
Match Day is the culmination of a medical student’s education: the day all graduating seniors and non-traditional applicants find out where they will spend the next three to seven years to train in a desired specialty. I fell in love with obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) as it was the perfect way to combine my passion for women’s health with medicine and surgery. I also liked that the patients were relatively …
What’s life like after not matching? A physician’s story.
A natural part of life is emotionally growing (hopefully) with experience. If I was to look back at my own journey, when I was in medical school and just graduating, I would say that without doubt, one of the biggest things I would tell my younger self, would be to not take things too personally. This would be particularly true in professional situations.
I look back at how personally I used to …
Physicians can’t take things personally. Here are some tips.
Death and dying — it is one of the first topics I was taught about in medical school. I was fortunate to attend a medical school that only made us spend half our time falling asleep in lectures. The other half we were in small group sessions, working our way through real patient scenarios, trying to learn to think like a physician.
As part of our first-year curriculum we had to spend time doing …
A physician explains the afterlife to his child
Writing in Annals of Family Medicine a few years ago, Chicago obstetrician Benjamin P. Brown vividly described his mentor’s interaction with a patient who had just emigrated from Mexico and had no family support. “When he asked earnestly how she was doing, her hard-won defenses seemed to crumple, and all of a sudden she was sitting on the exam table, sobbing,” Brown wrote. “I watched, rapt, as Dr. Gonzales — …
A strong doctor-patient relationship: why it matters
The past decade has seen an enormous upheaval in the practice of medicine. The private independent medical practice is in danger of extinction. Management overhead and red tape has skyrocketed due to government regulations and private insurance and pharmaceutical benefit rules. Added to that are multiple electronic medical records that need to be implemented, vary from one hospital to another, and often do not “talk” to one another. Thus, it …
Why doctors don’t like to retire
“Oh, you’re a psychiatrist? I hope you won’t analyze me!”
I never know what people actually mean when they say that upon learning that I work as a psychiatrist.
I think they’re saying, “I hope you’re not going to spend our time together trying to discern my flaws.” Nobody wants people to seek out, highlight, and exploit their vulnerabilities and faults, so I can understand that. Of course, that’s not what psychiatrists do.
Anyway, …
Don’t worry, this psychiatrist won’t analyze you
Putting physicians in charge of hospitals seems like a no-brainer, but it isn’t what usually happens. A study published in Academic Medicine states that only about four percent of hospitals in the United States are run by physician leaders, which represents a steep decline from 35 percent in 1935. In the most recent 2018 Becker’s Hospital Review “100 Great Leaders …
5 reasons you should put physicians in charge of hospitals
Fake news is a term that’s become notorious over the last couple of years. For notorious reasons perhaps. But there’s actually another serious arena where there is inadvertently an awful lot of “fake news” on a daily basis. And that is, well you guessed it: in health care throughout our nation’s hospitals and offices!
Let me explain, and I suspect anyone who works in health care will be familiar with the scenario. …
The best way to fight misinformation in health care
I was a little taken aback when Dr. C. changed my patient from warfarin to one of the novel anticoagulants. And one I seldom use, at that.
I have only worked with her for about three years, and we seem to come from the same mold: seasoned family docs with a penchant for teaching and patient empowerment. I had not imagined she would step in and completely change my treatment plan …
Changing the treatment plan when covering for another doctor
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
