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.

We need to talk about mental illness in the medical field

Lisa Jacobs, MD, MBA

Physician

July 28, 2017

It wasn’t until I was six months into my second depressive episode that I discovered depression existed. I didn’t know it was a real disease. I didn’t know that my grandmother got electroconvulsive “shock” therapy in the 1950s. I only knew something was terribly wrong when I sat crying for 20 minutes in front of a pile of laundry one morning because the thought of choosing clothes and going through …

The stupidity epidemic is far more lethal than the opioid epidemic

Jay Joshi, MD

Physician

July 27, 2017

Substance abuse and overdose deaths are nothing new. People who use opioids are dying and will keep dying until we learn how to fix our bigger problem: the “stupidity epidemic.” We see and hear about the opioid epidemic every single day in the media, but no one is talking about the epidemic of stupidity, both in the medical and non-medical communities. We have thrown time, money and even tears at …

2 stories of how physicians dealt with burnout

Mani Saint-Victor, MD and C. Nicole Swiner, MD

Physician

July 27, 2017

We’ve been talking to doctors all around the world, and the mood is consistent. Physicians are frustrated and suffering from burn out because the old model of practicing medicine is no longer meeting their needs. From decreased compensation to desire to spend more time with our families to the combination of loss of autonomy and an increasingly impersonal and inefficient system, a career in medicine is not meeting its end …

Doctors: Don’t lose your humanity

Dr. Sonia Henry

Physician

July 27, 2017

There has been much publicity recently surrounding the issue of doctor mental health after a spat of doctor suicides, and sadly not a new thing in the history of medical training. I think the crux of this issue is the idea that doctors are somehow above the concept of humanity. We are held to standards above human abilities, yet we bleed the same blood, cry the same tears and feel …

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Doctors: Don’t lose your humanity

Goodbye to all that paperwork: An orthopedic surgeon leaves practice

Divya Singh, MD

Physician

July 26, 2017

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. …

The moral assassination of physicians must stop

Michael Weiss, MD

Physician

July 26, 2017

As a physician, all the mounting negative news I read about doctors can’t help but hit me straight in the gut. This is especially true when reading about a tragic murder of a sweet and highly dedicated 32-year-old physician, Dr. Tracy Sin-Yee Tam and the serious injuries to five other physicians on June 30th at NYC’s Bronx Lebanon Hospital. Can you blame me for advocating for my esteemed colleagues? Everybody’s …

A balanced way to fight physician burnout

Lisa Herbert, MD

Physician

July 26, 2017

Burnout amongst physicians is real and at an all-time high. This was even highlighted on an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy,” where a resident physician surgeon imploded after a series of stressors that happened over time. She experienced the loss of a patient during surgery and of a loved one that were not addressed. Coupled with the long work hours, the type-A personality and increased demands, this led to her state …

10 lessons from Hamilton that made me a better oncologist

Ashley Sumrall, MD

Physician

July 26, 2017

Over 30,000 visitors flocked to Chicago in early June to participate in the ASCO annual meeting, the summer mecca for all things oncology. In between plenary sessions and poster presentations, some attendees found their way to one of the Hamilton Chicago performances. Having opened in Chicago about seven months ago, this version of the “hip-hop musical” has packed in audiences, striving to capture some of the success that its New …

Helping a patient can help with grief

Sasha Sabir, MD

Physician

July 25, 2017

The constant hum of the subway car over the tracks plays in the background as I sit there with my mind running over the tasks of the day. I never quite thought of myself as a particularly intense person, yet here I was three years later working with an underserved population between a state and county hospital in my first week as one of the new administrative chiefs. The very …

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Helping a patient can help with grief

Hope is the ultimate cure

Dr. Saqib Noor

Physician

July 25, 2017

In February 2010, I completed my final ward round and said goodbye to my patients in Haiti just six weeks after a tragic earthquake. This earthquake was a natural disaster so devastating that within a momentary blink, a minute’s tremor and a rumbling collapse, an estimated one-hundred-thousand people lost their lives.

Amidst the wreckage, hundreds of thousands more were left severely injured, shocked, …

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Hope is the ultimate cure

3 steps to be a better medical professional. Even if it seems impossible.

William Fuller, MD

Physician

July 24, 2017

I came into work last night for the last time. Though I was on a service full of sick patients, I was not nervous. After three years of this, three years of people trying to die in creative ways, and my friends and I trying to stop them — I have no nervousness left. There is just nothing left for the hospital to throw at me.

“Dan,” I asked my intern, …

Emergency physicians have to build emotional walls. Sometimes they break.

Jeffrey McWilliams, MD

Physician

July 24, 2017

We emergency physicians are often thrust into the frontline battles raging in society. The pain, blood, and emotions are so real, so thick and ever present, creating an undertone that is difficult to deny. We walk the corridors of our departments actively involved in life or death, where the span of mere millimeters might as well be miles as we explore wounds, clinical scenarios and presentations. How do we do …

Here’s why opioid addicts are victims

Vincent DeGennaro, Jr., MD, MPH

Physician

July 24, 2017

Tom’s feet are shackled so he can’t bolt from the hospital bed when the prison guard isn’t looking. The guard places handcuffs on him when he walks to the bathroom and stands just outside the door as Tom relieves himself. Despite being treated for a deep tissue infection in one finger, Tom is in generally good shape — lean but muscular with the strong hands of a workman. Back in …

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Here’s why opioid addicts are victims

Are end-of-life decisions the doctor’s or the patient’s?

Don S. Dizon, MD

Physician

July 24, 2017

I remember meeting this patient the first time. I had just started in a new position, and she was one of my first consults. Tracey* had an aggressive sex-cord tumor of the ovary that had relapsed soon after surgery, grown through primary chemotherapy and grew once more after secondary surgery and “adjuvant” pelvic radiation. I knew …

Doctor, we can’t read your writing

Sarah Fraser, MD

Physician

July 23, 2017

“Dr. Fraser, the pharmacy is on the phone for you. Line one.”

I answer the call, pressing the gray, rectangular button with one hand while writing in a patient’s chart with the other.

“Sarah Fraser speaking.”

“Oh, hi, Doctor, we just got in a prescription of yours, but we are not quite sure what it says.” The pharmacist is gentle in her words.

It was the first time this had happened. I’d promised myself …

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Doctor, we can’t read your writing

Don’t call me “Mrs.” Call me “Doctor.”

Jennifer Lycette, MD

Physician

July 23, 2017

My smile freezes on my face as my patient says to me, “I’m so glad you’re back – that I get to see Mrs. Lycette today!”

He has been my patient for several years, and I am perplexed to hear him address me as “Mrs.” rather than “Doctor.” At the same time, I really do not think he means an intentional insult, so I keep my face neutral and continue with …

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Don’t call me “Mrs.” Call me “Doctor.”

He was fine when I discharged him, now he might die

Raj Waghmare, MD

Physician

July 22, 2017

It’s 1 a.m., and I’m afraid this guy is going to die. He’s gasping for air, hunched over a table as I poke his chubby back and try to find a rib. Oxygen is flowing through nasal prongs at six liters per minute, and it’s barely making a difference as his oxygen saturation hovers around eighty-five percent (it should be in the high-nineties.) He’s sick, but what’s more worrisome is …

The decline and fall of informed consent

Richard Gunderman, MD, PhD and James Lynch, MD

Physician

July 21, 2017

Margaret Edson’s 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning play, Wit, tells the story of the final hours of Vivian Bearing, PhD, an English professor dying of cancer. Early in the course of her disease, one of her doctors sees the value of her case from a research point of view and asks her to enroll in a clinical trial of an investigational therapy. In the film version of the play, which stars …

Physicians must treat patients with the utmost respect with regards to their spiritual beliefs

Neha Sharma, DO

Physician

July 21, 2017

Scientific evidence pointed to an extremely poor prognosis. Numbers and statistics emphatically declared her imminent demise. My 33-year-old patient was not going to survive.

The physicians presented the data to the mother and recommended withdrawal of care, but she remained indecisive.

She struggled for two days with the possibility of her young daughter dying.

Her child was in the critical care unit in a vegetative state. It was a parent’s worst nightmare.

I took …

Want a cure for physician burnout? Take care of yourself.

Jattu Senesie, MD

Physician

July 20, 2017

The recent celebration of Employee Well-being Month got me thinking a lot about how physicians are treated as employees with regard to well-being. There is a general consensus that the issue of physician well-being needs to be addressed at both the level of the individual physician and the level of the system in which physicians work.

Unfortunately, this insight has thus far failed to lead to significant improvement in the overall …