Nothing troubles physicians more than an unforeseen outcome and a malpractice lawsuit. It cracks open self-doubts and assumptions about medicine and may be life-changing.
It commonly fuels burnout, loss of confidence, PTSD and early retirement. And there are links to depression and physician suicide.
There’s another side to this story, though. Like all of life’s great challenges, a patient’s unexpected loss, and professional litigation present us with huge opportunities for growth.
In his lifetime, William Shakespeare wrote almost 120,000 lines and about 900,000 words. His 37 plays and 154 sonnets burnished his reputation as the unrivaled wordsmith of the English language. So what would the Bard, who had something to say about everything, have said about palliative care of the suffering of the sick? Although I couldn’t resurrect him from his venerated grave, I could unearth quotes from his collective works …
Recently while traveling overseas, I found myself in a predicament not often encountered nor taught to health professionals. I was requested to address an emergency at 30,000 feet in the air. This got us thinking: How many patients consider the possibility of a medical emergency in the air?
People with chronic illnesses and the older population (who find themselves retiring and having more time to travel) need to be prepared so …
I made the decision to get an MD/MBA when I was still in high school. I had an interest in medicine but hated the idea of being yet another Indian doctor. How unoriginal. So when my dad introduced me to someone who had done this dual degree, it was my “aha!” moment. As far as I knew, this was something different. It could set me apart, and no one else …
Seeing patients in my OB/GYN office this morning, I try to stave off the mild nervousness rumbling inside of me. My good friend Monica is having a C-section this afternoon, and I’m performing it.
We met ten years ago when I walked my three-year-old daughter into Monica’s preschool classroom for the first time. Monica sat on the floor, a child in her lap and others playing around her. Like them, I …
I visit him in the ICU day in and day out. It’s the man with the fedora. I see him every day because he is not going anywhere. The metastatic cancer has ravaged his colon, bones, liver, and lungs. His oncologist is willing to try more chemo — but not now — maybe someday “when he is stronger.” The man has already failed several other regimens. The oncologist hasn’t seen …
Seventy percent of the children and adolescents I see in clinic are obese so I have many opportunities throughout my clinic day to talk about exercise and nutrition. Although the general message is the same, precisely how I deliver the information matters more than I could have imagined. I found this out quite accidentally.
It was toward the end of the day, two months after the firestorm in Santa Rosa, California. …
Her name is Wanda Poltawska. She is currently 96 years old and showing the physical signs of advanced aging, but remains mentally sharp and insightful.
What makes her special is that in 1941, at 19 years of age, she was sent to a concentration …
When I was an intern on the cardiology service, I rarely left before 10 p.m. Call days were longer. One day in the workroom, I noticed my co-intern sniffling as she typed progress notes. Her eyes were red. “Are you OK?” I asked.
She said, “I just cried in the bathroom for about ten minutes. It’s nothing bad; it’s just … I’m so tired. Do you ever feel so tired you …
The year was 1997, and I was an intern. I remember the morning vividly. Rounds had ended, the nurses had just started their shifts. The hospital was hustling. I felt a buzzing sound and looked down to see a page from my mother, then another and another. The frantic paging made my heart race and I wondered what could possibly be wrong. I ran to the nearest phone and heard …
We hear all the time that maternity leave in the U.S. is in shambles. Let’s clarify: There’s no such thing as guaranteed maternity leave. Some companies are obligated to give some leave to some employees — that’s as good as it gets. No companies are obligated to give paid leave.
Medical training adds complexity to parental leave. Residents and fellows are expected to be deferential, the lowest on the totem pole …
In my early days as a pediatrician, I felt a little bit at a loss when parents asked specific parenting questions. Of course, I could offer them advice and refer resources, but it was as a physician unaware of the nuances of parenting.
For example:
The tactile temperature
A thermometer gives one measurement, not a range. When parents respond, “Yes, at least 102-degrees,” I was initially puzzled. The clarification, “I could feel it. …
It wasn’t long into my clinical training when I realized that most patients do not convey information the way templates are designed to record it.
Instead, they tell stories — which may weave from topic to topic, progress forward or backward in time or in patterns that may not be familiar or clear.
But they are told as the patient sees fit to convey them. David, a forty-year-old man who recently presented …
Mr. F points a slender index finger to the heavens and states calmly: “It’s OK doctor. Jesus will protect me.” I had just said I was sorry there was nothing more we could offer, and he was going to die. He understood … right? It had been a difficult few months for my unfortunate patient. He smiles at me softly, nasogastric tube cascading over his right cheek and then closes …
It’s 7 a.m. The hospital is just starting to wake up from its slumber, stretching arms and blinking eyes. I’m 54 minutes away from the end of another night shift.
Night shifts are curious creatures. They are a part of the fabric of emergency medicine life — one of the often hated aspects of our jobs. They steal us away from our families, cutting short bedtime snuggles and picture books so …
I’m a family doctor in upstate New York. My patients include active NRA members and ardent pacifists. Most probably fall somewhere in the middle — they own guns for hunting or encourage neighbors to hunt the deer that feed on their lush gardens.
As a mother, I tried not to let my boys play with toy guns when they were little. In a young boy’s imagination, though, everything became a gun …
The opioid epidemic has reached a tipping point. Overdose deaths involving prescription opioids have quadrupled since 1999, as safer pain management practices must be a national priority. Everyone in health care needs to be aware of the potential dangers and become part of …
Earlier this month, one of us visited a prominent U.S. medical school to give a lecture on the topic of burnout and how physicians can find more fulfillment in the practice of medicine. Sadly, that very day, a fourth-year medical student there took her own life.
The problem was not personal failure. She had recently matched into a competitive residency program at the one of the nation’s …
I’ve watched enough television shows to know what a burned-out physician is supposed to look like: crying in the stairwell, head hanging dejectedly, knees bent; the downward spiral into drugs and alcohol that leads to a near-miss in surgery; or the final, explosive monologue that alienates the doctor in front of patients and peers. A once-solid doctor …
It’s a Wednesday morning, and after 8 o’clock grand rounds I headed back from the medical college auditorium to our practice, and as I walked back into the office our med-tech told me that my first two patients were already in their exam rooms.
So I dove right in, starting with a husband and wife there for their annual physical exams, and I set about getting to my morning …
