Physician

Physicians writing on KevinMD about the life of the profession: the work itself, the exhaustion, what women physicians are paid and asked to carry, the losses the profession has been slow to name, and who decides how physicians work. Five maintained records draw on this archive: Physician burnout: what physicians say, in their own words, Primary care: what physicians say, in their own words, Women in medicine: what women physicians say, in their own words,, Physician suicide: what physicians say, in their own words, and Physicians and administrators: what physicians say about who runs medicine, in their own words.

An orthopedic surgeon wants to do more

Dr. Basil Stathoulis

Physician

February 5, 2021

Sometimes I think.

Sometimes I think and nothing happens. That seems to happen a lot during this period of the second wave of COVID-19 that has hit my hospital. Netcare Kingsway Hospital is a community private hospital and has been overwhelmed in caring for patients with COVID-19.

Sometimes I think and something happens. That’s when a story takes shape, and I wonder how I will tie it together to make it work.

Sometimes …

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An orthopedic surgeon wants to do more

Physicians: How taking care of the backlog and can help take care of yourself

Sarah J. Smith, MD

Physician

February 5, 2021

A backlog is a terrible thing, isn’t it? It’s certainly something that we often choose to hide as physicians. We use it as a source of shame, guilt, frustration, and overwhelm. Many physicians have had their jobs threatened, or even lost their jobs, due to mountains of unfinished charts or inboxes.

When you understand this, you can see why you would keep that sort of thing to yourself. Every day the …

Talk to me. Talk to us. Talk about That Topic.

Nicole M. King, MD

Physician

February 4, 2021

This topic always takes me back. To the time my life stopped and flipped upside down. I never understood how people could drop to their knees in public and have a moment of agony or grief. I guess the pain I had felt up to that moment was not strong enough to knock me to my knees. But that day … it was enough.

The repeated missed phone calls. The wailing …

Maybe life is happening: the power of language in patient hand-offs

Aleks Olszewski, MD

Physician

February 4, 2021

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
– George Orwell

The “difficult” family

At 2 a.m., on my first night shift as a pediatric resident, a patient, Casey, transferred from another hospital. She had a rare, progressive chronic illness, was medically complex, and was currently receiving treatment for an acute systemic infection. Shortly after she arrived, she became difficult to arouse. When I asked her mother questions, I was …

How could a patient die from anesthesia for a colonoscopy?

Karen S. Sibert, MD

Physician

February 4, 2021

Every death related to anesthesia is a tragedy; even more so when a minor procedure such as a colonoscopy leads to a completely unexpected death. Everyone knows that open heart surgery carries a mortality risk, but few of us walk into the hospital for a colonoscopy thinking that death is a plausible outcome.

We know so few facts at this point about what happened on January 21 at Beaumont Royal Oak …

The destructive health consequences of political polarization

Philip A. Masters, MD

Physician

February 3, 2021

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.

Political divisiveness has always been part of the fabric of America. Even as our Founders laid the groundwork for the United States, they understood the challenges of seeking to assemble a unified and functional country from such a wide geographic and culturally diverse …

How divorce helped this physician

Trina E. Dorrah, MD

Physician

February 2, 2021

I got married the day after I graduated from medical school to someone I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. Seven years later, we were divorced.

Even though a high percentage of marriages end in divorce, there is still a stigma that many of us who divorce feel. I had already completed residency and was an attending by the time I got divorced, and I remember feeling so …

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How divorce helped this physician

Yes, your doctor was a sorority girl

Erika Visser Aragona, DO

Physician

February 2, 2021

Patients often comment on my attire other than my white coat, particularly my impractical footwear, until I finally broke down and purchased Danskos to avoid being called out for my truthful impracticality. It is amazing how patients care more about my orthotics than remembering the reason they scheduled a visit with me, and God bless them for that.

I am in family medicine, and I thrive on personal and genuine relationships where …

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Yes, your doctor was a sorority girl

Being “essential” has been overwhelming

Prerana Chatty, MD

Physician

January 31, 2021

In July 2020, we became essential workers. We threw on our scrubs, put our stethoscopes around our necks, and walked to work for our first day as pediatricians.

Six months later, I have had a moment to reflect on what it has meant to be “essential.” I have come to realize that the simple act of learning from and taking care of our patients has been essential. “Being essential” has looked …

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Being “essential” has been overwhelming

A frontline physician’s experience with a COVID patient

Cindy Mong, MD

Physician

January 31, 2021

She was the brightest thing in that white room.

Warm brown eyes locked on mine. She peered out at me from behind an oxygen mask, a small woman hidden under a cloud of brown hair. Usually, when I came into the room to examine her, she was lying flat on her stomach, her chin propped up on her hands in benediction like she was reading a Bible. As soon as I …

Being a pediatrician did not prepare me for parenting

Saba Fatima, MD

Physician

January 30, 2021

“Your child should always sleep on the back, by themselves, in their crib, bassinet, or pack and play with no stuffed toys or loose blankets.”

These words are ringing in my ears as I put my newborn baby in the bassinet for the millionth time, only to get a shrill cry in return. She screams and screams as tears roll down my exhausted face, just hoping to get an hour of …

The Rx we were never taught to write

Robyn Tiger, MD

Physician

January 29, 2021

As a diagnostic radiologist, I could not have imagined anything more amazing than having the privilege of using “x-ray vision” to peer inside my patients’ bodies in search of the etiologies behind their symptoms and illnesses. But over time, I felt incredibly stressed, anxious, imbalanced, and overwhelmed, and I developed many symptoms and illnesses of my own, including migraines, tinnitus, vertigo, body pain, reflux, and intermittent paresthesias. My hands would …

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The Rx we were never taught to write

In gratitude to our nation’s residents

John P. Murray, MD

Physician

January 28, 2021

Of all the unsung heroes of this plague-time, perhaps those who have endured the most are resident physicians. After graduation from medical school, resident doctors spend three to seven years in intensive specialty training before they can practice independently. Residency is a vestige of apprenticeships from a bleaker past. It is chapter in life when one’s time and energy are mostly spent in hospitals or clinics, when 80-hour …

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In gratitude to our nation’s residents

A physician’s story of sexual harassment

Anonymous

Physician

January 27, 2021

Like many surgical specialties, the one I was aspiring to is a male-dominated field. As such, all my colleagues were male, and I often felt as though I was trying to be a part of a boy’s club. I shed my intrinsic femininity and instead equipped myself with diplomacy, banter, a light-hearted attitude, and contagious enthusiasm.

I knew nothing about the footy, and I hated beer, but I was witty, I …

14 tips when negotiating a physician job

Christina Arnold, MD

Physician

January 27, 2021

Negotiations are not just for the job interview and annual review. We negotiate every day. Negotiating in place can be a powerful mechanism to make your current job a better fit.

The key to effective negotiations is to think like the boss. What are her concerns, goals, and interests? How can you align your goals with those of the boss and institution so that everyone wins?

At every point where you are …

A surgeon left his own son’s funeral to take care of your child

Andy Lamb, MD

Physician

January 27, 2021

I recently read a story that struck close to home for me, and I suspect for nearly all of you in your medical careers at one time or another. It was a story of a surgeon called in urgently to the ED for a seriously injured young boy. The surgeon arrived as soon as he could, only to be confronted by an irate father for being late and accusing the …

Critical care physicians have been through hell

Anonymous

Physician

January 26, 2021

It was a cold winter morning in January 2021. Another day in the ICU, another day caring for critically ill patients with complex medical conditions, another day caring for patients on their death beds, another day interacting with patients’ families and their emotions, another day of putting on a strong face for my patients, their loved ones, my ICU family and my trainees, another day of giving bad news to …

I keep going because I miss them. And I miss me.

Nicole M. King, MD

Physician

January 26, 2021

I have written a lot about how COVID has changed me. Changed medicine. Changed America. I have written about it as a pivot point. A way to build a better medical infrastructure. I have alluded to how we can use innovation, advocacy, and listening to turn 2020 into an opportunity for change. How we can use it as a way to finally admit that health disparities exist, Black Lives Matter, …

Experiences in racism of a female resident physician

Crystal Cobb, DO

Physician

January 25, 2021

I am tired. I am tired of you telling me how to respond to racism. I’ve experienced racism and microaggressions as a brown woman my entire life. You have been trying to control my response for just as long. Stop.

In high school, when another student told me to “go back to Africa” and I responded that those comments were not acceptable, you – my classmate – told me to sit …

A new way to look at leadership: Embrace the commitment

Robyn Alley-Hay, MD

Physician

January 25, 2021

Faced with starting a women’s cervical cancer program at 12,000 feet at the top of the world in the Himalayas was daunting. I had no idea how I was going to do it. I had my colposcope (a microscope to see the cervix) and a few speculums that I hoped would make the two-day trip through the mountains on a barely …

Physician

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