He was in his 30s, strikingly handsome with the short-cropped hair of a soldier. This was Ukraine, and it was at war with Russia. He was now part of that war, a war the rest of the world has forgotten or no longer cares about, even as its’ young men continued to fight and die in the horror that is the front-line. His unit’s chaplain asked me to see him …
A patient makes this doctor realize the preciousness of time
To be seen.
To be heard.
To be understood.
To be acknowledged.
To be appreciated.
To be accepted.
To be welcomed.
To be engaged.
To be involved.
To be worthy.
To be helped.
Common desires of patients.
Common desires of physicians.
We are all interrelated.
This is the foundational basis of osteopathic medicine. Whether …
Expanding the osteopathic concept for the health of all things
It took me 47 years to hear those two devastating words, “You’re fired.”
It’s not like I didn’t have a slew of jobs before becoming a physician. I cut lawns and raked leaves as an early teen; I worked in a fast-food restaurant when I was 14 using my older brother’s ID, I worked in a carwash one summer, I even worked for a national department store. I was always polite, …
“You’re fired”: 2 words this doctor never expected to hear
In the KevinMD article, “Assisted suicide: a change of heart,” the author contends that there is salvation in suffering, but not everyone believes that is true. While I support the author’s ability to decide how she wants to die, I do not believe that her personal beliefs should dictate how I die.
I retired as an internist a few years ago because of declining health. I …
Medical aid in dying is not assisted suicide
I recently published an essay on physician suicide: “Doctors are killing themselves, and who is taking notice?” My intent was to bring awareness to this issue and honor a fallen colleague. I want to continue the discussion.
I realized that year after year, I fill out the medical licensure recertification without much thought. I live in Kentucky and have since I was initially licensure and the recertification …
It’s time to change the way we approach the mental health care of physicians
I have a lot of energy. I have been going and going and going for so long.
And today, it hit me.
I’m tired.
I began this pursuit of medicine in 1983 when I decided to be a zoology major. I worked and went to medical school. And I went to medical school and worked. Then I worked and went to three years of emergency medicine residency and worked hard for those three …
This physician is tired, and he’s not alone
I am a veterinarian. More specifically, I am a veterinary specialist, board-certified in emergency and critical care. I don’t play with puppies and kittens. I treat the worst of the worst in a specialty hospital setting with a state-of-the-art ER and ICU. Despite years of education, including veterinary school, internship, fellowship, and residency to obtain this education and specialty board certification, I was not prepared for the emotional toll of …
Suicide in veterinary medicine is a huge problem right now
Way back when humans listened to music without Spotify, AirPods, or smartphones.
In those BSP (before smartphone) days, people would actually get off their tooshies (the medical term for the gluteal area) and walk over to a thing called a stereo to adjust the sound using something called an equalizer. Crazy huh? Millennials reading this are already distractedly Googling all of this to verify I am not spinning tall tales.
Let’s use …
Make music out of the sounds that life presents
Oftentimes, when thinking of “wellness,” people first think about the physical health of the human body. And while wellness does include a healthy body, it also encompasses mental health. Just like it is important to take care of your body, it is just as vital to take your mental wellness into consideration. According to Meagan W. Vermeulen MD, co-author of the Career and Life Planning Guidebook …
Physician wellness and how doctors can take care of themselves
The trees are briskly bare. The weather is changing. The days of sunshine are a thing of the past.
A virus is raging in vehement form and remarkable fashion throughout the land, and we are so moved. We are moved to anger. We are moved to change. We are moved to transition in time and to a new season of promise. The clouds are taking a new shape. The sky is …
America is a patient and she is sick
It was distressing to hear and read recent and ongoing disparaging comments about osteopathic medicine, attacking one of our own, from remarks by Rachel Maddow to tweets by Cher and a derogatory video, since removed, portraying a female DO by Figs Scrubs.
Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley, DO, serves as the Physician to the President. This emergency medicine-trained combat veteran graduated from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and is well-qualified …
Attacks on osteopathic medicine are attacks on all physicians
I’ve done a lot of interviews on my road to becoming a cardiology fellow. Here are a few topics that people don’t talk about enough.
Speed dating
I think of interviews like speed dating. Everyone puts on their “first date.” Everyone behaves their best; therefore, you can’t trust everything people say. Your job is to really listen to what people are saying, how they’re saying it, when they pause, when they fish …
Unconventional residency interview tips
When I organized my medical practice, I tried to find individuals with great customer service skills and medical knowledge to work in internal medicine practice. We all do our best to meet the needs of our patients, but sometimes, even with the best of efforts, we fall short.
For example, a patient requested a large quantity of a medication as a refill early one morning. I saw the fax as I …
Conversations are the best ways to overcome concerns
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My group of nephrologists is trying to convince our 75-year-old colleague to retire from full-time clinical practice. I think he truly believes that the day he retires, his essence, soul, chi — whatever you want to call it — will be forcibly removed from his body, and he will cease to exist. He has told me, more than once, that he will be dead in less than a year if …
The era of the empowered patient and patient-centered health care has been upon us for some time. Only a generation ago, there was a much more paternalistic approach to medicine. This has changed for the better across the western world. As somebody who teaches and coaches physicians on how to improve their communication skills, I would say that the newer generation of doctors is much more receptive than many of …
Doctors already are actors, whether they want to be ones or not
Racism is a pandemic that has long existed before COVID-19.
As a fourth-year medical student, I have been rotating in the hospitals and recently finished my sub-internship. Whether on the wards or in outpatient clinics, a recurring phrase would hover from one provider to the next, depending on how busy their week was: “black cloud” and “white cloud.”
In the medical world, the former has often been used to describe trainees or …
It’s time we stop saying “black cloud” and “black weekend”
It was an average Minnesota fall day. I ran out of the house to do a 3 a.m. vaginal delivery. I was tired, both mentally and physically. Medicine has always been such a joyous calling for me. I probably commit nearly 16 hours a day to my job in one way, shape or form, whether its education, writing, clinic duties. Everyone has always asked me how I haven’t gotten burned …
Physicians are tired of being judged based on their gender
Despite the pervasiveness of mental illness and burnout among medical providers, only in the past decade have providers begun to acknowledge and explore the psychological distress so many struggle with. As a resident, I have observed how COVID-19 has further complicated this situation by dramatically increasing stress while limiting our capacity to deal with that stress. This dangerous combination is setting us up for a surge in already sky-high burnout …
The impact of COVID-19 on resident burnout and how we can combat it
An excerpt from Man’s 4th Best Hospital.
“Why am I here?” the Fat Man was saying to us, his team gathered for the first time around in his new public clinic leaning up against one of the soaring buildings of Man’s 4th. “And why are you? One day …
We’re not trying to survive, but to humanize
As a physician working in acute care medicine, one of the biggest delights of my job is regularly still having patients from the Greatest Generation. In the United Kingdom, I really enjoyed sitting with them and hearing their stories of mandatory city evacuations during World War 2, rationing, the Blitz, and the huge struggle to rebuild a devastated country after 1945. Visiting my grandparents in India when I was a …
The Greatest Generation is dying out. It’ll really be our loss once they leave us.
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