The opioid epidemic has swept through communities across the country, and according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse more than 115 people in the U.S. die every day after overdosing on opioids. This crisis is dominating the headlines as physicians, hospitals, community groups, elected officials, businesses and families try to tackle this massive problem. Opioid addiction is a complicated issue, and it will take more than a silver bullet …
When I was in medical school, I didn’t realize the potential data would have in health care. Back then I learned from 1000+ page hardcover textbooks and handwrote notes in paper medical records.
Fast forward twenty years — data and analytics are at the forefront of health care. Other doctors and I now have electronic medical records in the majority of hospitals and medical offices; there are claims data warehouses, and …
Not including residency, I have been caring for patients for five years. But was I really caring about them? We all took the oath to do no harm. We all began our journey into medicine with intentions to make a difference in patient’s lives. But sometimes our intentions erode. We become jaded. We listen to disgruntled counterparts tell us how medicine used to be.
In response to the increasing burdens of administrative work and cumbersome charting levied upon healthcare providers in recent years, medical scribes have been touted as a potential solution for streamlining the documentation process. Interest in the use of scribes has certainly been increasing, with the American College of Medical Scribe Specialists estimating that the number of medical scribes nationally will increase from 15,000 in 2014 to more than 100,000 by …
What I’m about to tell you is based on good insider information. But I also disclose that this is an amalgamation of a few reports of teledoc companies to me and their crony insurance companies, not a thorough analysis of the entire industry. I just assume there are other business models out there that look a little different, but I suspect the bottom line impact is about the same.
I guess I should take it as a compliment when patients come to see me after visiting a specialist and ask me a bunch of difficult specialty-related questions.
“Did you ask the specialist that?” I typically ask, and the answer will be a plain “no.”
I’ve seen it in action. Some doctors speak quickly, say a lot, and exude so much authority that it’s hard to stop and question them. There is …
How often do we face a physical or mental feat that we’ve always wanted to do, but never seemed to be able to complete successfully? I had a physical feat that I wanted to do my entire life, and this year, at age 56, I finally succeeded. I can still picture my junior high gym class. Lots of other people could do it. Why couldn’t I? They didn’t seem to …
A wonderful senior resident helped me understand the goal of rounding. Rounds should focus primarily on understanding the key problems and the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to those problems. She suggested that some rounds spend too much time on “minutia” that the resident could handle, and not enough on understanding the big issues. According to her, rounds work best when we spend our time addressing the problems that the patient …
What makes any particular job a “bad” one? Maybe the pay is too low. Perhaps the hours don’t work with your other commitments. It could be the commute is too long, or the opportunity for advancement is too little. A job might be bad because it has a poor …
My puppy looked sick. Not just any sick but “get an attending, two large bore IVs, start fluids, get her on a monitor, move her to the resuscitation bay” sick. And I was scared. “You have to take her to the vet!” I pleaded with my husband as I sprinted down the street to get home to get the keys to the car.
November 2017. I was on my pediatrics rotation at a local community clinic. My attending asked me if I could see Johnathan (identifying information and event details altered to protect confidentiality), an eight-year-old boy who has been increasingly fatigued since the start of the school year. I walked down the hallway laden with paintings of Amazon animals and knocked on room #13.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Sanders. My name’s T.J., and I’m …
As an internist, I strived to give patients hope by prescribing therapies that increased their chance — their hope — of the best outcome and by encouraging them with hopeful words. My own hope was to care for patients until I was old.
Just weeks after celebrating my 36th birthday, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Throughout the ups-and-downs of my chemotherapy, I felt the kind of hope I’d wanted my …
Two of my local hospitals just invested 3 to 4 million dollars in preparation for an inspection of the facilities by the Joint Commission. The cost of the inspection runs in the $10 million dollar range after the preparation costs. The inspection is a high-stress situation for the administration because if you fail, or lose your accreditation, the private insurers will void their contract with you and you won’t get …
When I was in medical school, I loved pathology. The visual learning and deep understanding of disease were attractive enough that after second year, I took an extra year before clinical rotations to work as a post-sophomore fellow, working as a resident cutting specimens and performing autopsies. I missed patient contact but it served as a great foundation for clinical medicine …
In June 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia along with an army of 600,000 men; fewer than 100,000 made it back. During their ignoble military withdraw, in the middle of a terrible winter, thousands of …
I am a critical care physician and spend a good amount of time in the emergency room seeing consults. As an internal medicine resident, we were often in the ER, admitting new patients. In my three years of residency, we spent only two to four weeks working in the emergency room. It was the one time I had an insider’s view of life as an ER physician. And, man, was …
After spending a decade in college and medical school, followed by internships and residency, seeking additional guidance at the beginning of your career may seem excessive. You’ve already taken direction from dozens of leaders; isn’t it time to cut your own path?
It’s that time of year again when retail outlets start counting down the days to Christmas and deck their stores with holiday cheer. For many people, this time of year feels magical. Yet for others, it is a consumer competition to buy the absolute best gift at the lowest price. While both these groups love the holidays in their own way, there is a third group for which the holidays …
I enjoy talking to random people about their experiences with health care. As somebody who regularly travels all over the country, for both work and pleasure (I far prefer the latter), whenever I meet people in situations where you end up talking — be it on airplanes, a guided city tour, or at a social function — as soon as I say I’m a physician, the conversation invariably ends up …
I like to think of myself as a relatively optimistic person. If you have ever met me in person, you might think that I have a pretty sunny disposition on life. And for the most part, I do. Since I write every day, however, there are times when my posts may start going negative. Not for an extended period, but long enough for my readers to wonder if am just a touch …
