Being in a hospital is a scary and frightening time, and it’s easy for those of us at the frontlines — doctors and nurses — to forget that as we go about our busy work days. Patients are at a very low point in their lives and will remember everything about their hospital stay, including all their interactions, for a very long time.
As someone with a keen interest in improving …
In the hospital? Here are 7 things you must keep in mind.
I burned out early. I was done being a doctor at the end of fellowship. Although I took a job as a critical care physician, I desperately sought to alter my career somehow. I looked into website development, something I had been good at in high school. I took a few refresher classes on my days off and started coding my own sites. Luckily, my first job out of fellowship accepted many …
I was done being a doctor at the end of fellowship
I’ve always wanted to be a pediatrician because I love kids; if you ask most people who work in pediatrics whether nurses or physicians they may say that. It’s a very common response to the question “Why pediatrics?” Or how can you do pediatrics?” when students and physicians are asked. Yes, we love working with children for many reasons. Some love the unexpected unrehearsed things kids say; they will shock …
When healthy children die: Pediatricians are not superhumans
Wellness. It’s all the rage these days as we try to manage our crazy work schedules while still maintaining balance in life. We have wellness committees, wellness workshops, wellness coaches, and wellness apps for our smartphones.
So, then, what does it mean to be well?
To the average person, and to the dictionary, to be well is to be “in good health” or “in a good or satisfactory way.”
However, to those suffering …
What does it mean to be well? Ask an opiate addict.
So, how do you do it all?
It’s a Monday morning. After a flurry of activities, I am walking into the office at 8:00 a.m. I think back to the past 2 to 3 hours. I was up at 5:30 a.m., and in my workout clothes soon after. I managed to squeeze in a 20-minute workout, thanks to a video on YouTube. I then reviewed my schedule and patient charts for …
How do physician-mothers do it all?
How do you describe the feeling when you are at a restaurant, and the waiter sees your coffee cup at less than half full (never half empty) and without asking they refill the cup or better yet, bring you a fresh cup of coffee? If you are like most customers, you have a nice feeling about the restaurant and the waiter as they have anticipated your needs. Usually, this anticipatory …
Improve the patient experience with anticipatory patient service
Here’s a quote that readers will not readily recognize: “It is a pity that a doctor is precluded by his profession from being able sometimes to say what he really thinks.”
I’ll share the origin of the quote at the post’s conclusion. How’s that for a teaser? I’ll give you a hint below.
Physicians, by training and experience, are guarded with our words. To begin, we are never entirely sure of anything, …
Doctors: Be careful, your words matter
The women’s health has a history of being a volatile sector, especially of late. It is an area of medicine where politicians think they can have access to intimate and confidential patient-physician relationships. This is unacceptable and an invasion of privacy.
Voluntary termination of pregnancy. Voluntary interruption of pregnancy. These are the medical terms for what the layperson thinks of as an abortion.
Missed abortion. Threatened abortion. Incomplete abortion. Spontaneous abortion. Septic …
Stop judging: Sometimes terminating a pregnancy is necessary
“I can do that?”
During a recent morning practice session, a resident was presenting a patient who had had several episodes of syncope which culminated in a trip to the emergency room. She had a brief stay there, and on the discharge plan was written “follow-up with PCP and with cardiology.”
We went through her history and physical examination, we talked about how to further …
Are primary care doctors referring too much?
I am not God.
Nor do I want to be, but I feel sometimes that my patients and their families do.
When I entered the ICU early that overcast morning I knew judging from the throng of anxious people waiting outside that things were not right. He came to me straight away, his eyes haunting and sunken as if he hadn’t slept for the whole night. His body barely able to support …
Doctors are not God. Even if some patients want them to be.
In August of 1991, I became a family practitioner in the United States Air Force and was sent to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. During my time there, I was asked to go on a medical mission. This experience struck me with the missionary bug to provide my talents and to care for others in another country. With medications that were near expiration date in USAF stock and …
What this physician learned from a medical mission
To my beloved patients and your families,
Over the years, it has been an incredible experience and honor to be allowed to enter into your world. It is a world that I know few people are privy to, and it is an intimate world where the deepest questions about life tend to arise. I know that when you are confronted with sickness that leads you into this world, it can be …
A letter from a grateful physician to his patients
Leaving your career in medicine is like breaking up in a long term relationship. It may have all started out with lofty expectations, excitement about the future, and becoming your best self. However, somewhere along the way, things got messy and twisted and not what you signed up for.
There were hiccups along the way, signs that maybe it wasn’t good for you. There was the time you fell asleep at …
Retired at 37: Breaking up with a career in medicine
Among surgeons, it’s pretty common knowledge that residents and other providers may perform non-critical parts of a patient’s procedure. This not only helps residents and other trainees gain valuable surgical experience, it also gives patients better and faster access to high-demand surgical expertise.
The question is this: How well are surgeons explaining these facts to their patients?
Recent guideline updates by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) underscore the need …
4 scenarios surgeons need to explain to their patients
Medicine, what a noble profession. As the keepers of human health and longevity, we are entrusted with a huge but solemn responsibility. It’s an ancient artwork, passed through the generations from pre-antiquity, hand in hand from physician to physician. The Hippocratic oath ensuring that we first “do no harm” and commit ourselves to the honorable calling. We often hear “see one, teach one, do one” and so propagates the training …
All good doctors listen to nurses
The onset of the new millennium has brought about a shift in not only the technological aspect of our industry, but also the mindset of physicians who are entering the field. Gone are the days of “work 40 years at the same practice, retire and live the good life.” Physicians are finding more creative ways to be doctors including entering non-clinical careers, being entrepreneurs on the side, and moving into …
Life coaching for physicians is an underused physician burnout tool
I’m humbled by the honor to practice medicine. We have the opportunity to be frontline participants in an ever evolving cascade of events in the lives of others. Our decisions, directions, and split second actions have the ability to unite families, sustain breath or literally a beating heart. Although biased, I can’t think of many professions more fulfilling and honorable. There are issues and concerns, but they pale in comparison …
Compartmentalization failed me, and I’m forever grateful
I’m probably crazy. I ride my motor scooter to and from work at the hospital. Some consider it unsafe. Perhaps it is, but feeling the wind and rain, those unfiltered elements. And after 12 hours inside a controlled environment, it’s too refreshing to pass up. So at 2 a.m. Friday night, I’m zooming (you always “zoom” on a scooter) through the industrial district after a tiring admitting shift. I see …
We must remember to humanize our patients
It is no secret that physicians are disenchanted with the changes in medicine and can be overheard saying that they do not want their children to go into the profession. Has the practice of medicine deteriorated to the extent we say it has, and are there more appealing options?
According to a Doctors Company survey of 5,000 physicians, 9 out of 10 physician respondents indicated an unwillingness to recommend health care …
The medical profession has a bad reputation. Here’s why.
Most health care professionals went into the field because of a calling. For many of us, it is not just a career but a sense of mission. While the system drives hoards to the brink and over the edge of burn-out, a sense of purpose remains. The goals are not the same for all, but it is a good time to re-examine our life goals.
Being a doctor, or any professional …
Doctors serve the people not the system
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