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.
I recently attended a conference in Savannah, Georgia sponsored by the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research.
Since I haven’t spent much time in Georgia outside of Savannah and Atlanta, the welcoming plenary on improving health outcomes for the state’s rural and underserved populations was eye-opening. According to Dr. Keisha Callins, Chair of the Department of Community Medicine at Mercer University, Georgia ranked 39th out of 50 states in primary care physician …
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Many places in America are essentially devoid of doctors
Why can’t doctors be depressed? They encounter challenging and emotional situations every day, and they are robbed of the emotional intelligence training necessary to handle them properly.
The 32-year-old single mother of two who was recently diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer and given a prognosis of four months to live. The 13-year-old daughter who suffered her first seizure while swimming alone in her home pool and now lies paralyzed in the …
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Why can’t doctors be depressed?
Without question, the interconnectivity created by social media is a plus when it comes to talking about physician burnout, suicide and policies affecting our practice of medicine. We are no longer in independent silos with the surgeons suffering in one corner and pediatricians elsewhere. Physicians are no longer isolated contemplating if what they are experiencing is just unique to them. We are developing collective voices. It is incredible to believe …
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Burned out? Just say no and teach others to as well
Dear John Oliver,
First of all, thank you for your recent segment on dialysis. Kidney disease deserves much more attention and discussion than it currently receives. Thank you also for your full-throated support of transplantation and the need for more kidney donors. As a practicing nephrologist, there is nothing better than hearing that one of my patients has been given a transplant. Finally, thank you for pointing out that end-stage renal …
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3 points on dialysis John Oliver forgot to make
For the most part, the sexism in medicine is not subliminal at all — it’s quite overt. Unless you’re a female physician, you probably are unaware that it’s still an ever-present reality for us. I want to note that there are very good men out there who are trying their best to be advocates for equality in our field even though they cannot fully appreciate the female physician plight. My …
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Even if you can’t see sexism immediately, it’s still there
He entered the hospital on Monday morning with a list of patients running through his mind. From the time he received a sign out of 22 patients from his colleague on Sunday evening, he was planning his workday. It was a ritual of his to pray and sleep early on Sunday night to prepare him for what lie ahead. What lied ahead was a busy week of inpatient medicine — …
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The last patient of the day gets the least care
I am not an employee. Maybe I should have said this four years ago when I was an employee. When I opened my private practice in 2014, I was running away from something as much as I was running to something new. I’ve been out of training for over a decade. Early in my career, I envisioned myself as an employee of either a non-profit organization working with underserved communities …
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Caring for employees is the right thing to do
Doctors have been bemoaning changes in the practice of medicine for years and with good reason. It’s harder and harder to make a go of it in private practice. In recent years our area has lost several small practices — Hal Grotke’s Redwood Family Practice closed, Dr. Garcia retired, Teresa Marshall’s solo office shut its doors, Eureka Internal Medicine transitioned to Humboldt Medical Specialists (which then became St. Joseph Hospital …
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The slow death of private practices
My husband is a doctor. Similar to any other career, this is what he spends most of his time doing. It’s also our family’s livelihood — how we pay our mortgage, our bills and send our daughter to preschool.
He went to through seven years of training after college, often working all night or even 24-plus hour calls. He’s had to miss family dinners, birthday parties, nights of putting our daughter …
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Stop asking doctors for free advice
Over the last few decades, public perception of physicians has been on the decline. Many issues are to blame, but a largely overlooked contributing factor is the media. Physicians are often portrayed negatively, with stories of narcotic abuse, greed and medical mistakes dominating the news. Rather than fight back, physician organizations have stood silently and allowed their reputations to be tarnished. On the other hand, nursing organizations have been busy …
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Doctors: You have a PR problem
Throughout training, I had an idea. And that idea was — I would be a great academic physician. I had the right training. I had done research from college through fellowship. I had received research grants from medical school through fellowship, published numerous papers and started defining a niche. Everything was going great.
Academia — here I come!
Then attending-hood arrived. I looked for positions in academic centers. I was limited by …
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Better care: Private practice or academic center?
I am an emergency physician, forever grateful of the responsibilities entrusted by my patients. This is a relationship I hold dear. As such, I’m an active participant in the war of life and death for our patients. I’m in the trenches with the best nurses, techs and EMS personnel holding the line as the battle continues. We have our victories and share our defeats, all in the name of what …
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There’s something wrong with emergency care. Here’s what it is.
America seems to have a more divisive tone now compared to recent years. New Orleans has seen protests spark over the removal of Confederate monuments. Images are all around us with one that seems to have people quite divided — the Confederate flag.
I often have a sense of curiosity when I see this flag flown on people’s front porch, flag pole or on their car. I wonder if the person …
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A conscious bias against the Confederate flag
Many years ago, three doctors formed an internal medicine practice and were proud of the thousands of patients they accumulated.
They were fine physicians and very dedicated to the masses who walked through their clinic doors. They saw patients in the office, rounded at two hospitals, and visited a number of nursing homes. This was truly a full-service practice.
Around 2005, Dr. A was starting to fatigue. He was well into his …
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This story of 5 doctors is being seen around the country
The concept of “First, do no harm,” which is embedded in the oath that kicks off the careers of most new doctors in America, has become something of a surrogate for the practice of medicine. But it’s something of a false promise. Doctors routinely cause their patients harm. The oath we should be taking is, “Help others with …
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From “do no harm” to “reduce harm.” It’s time to change the paradigm
He had been in for a physical the day before.
Like so many people, he seemed to have this need to run half a dozen minor bodily symptoms past me, while I worked my way through the agenda of screening colonoscopy, whether or not to test his PSA, calculating his ten-year cardiovascular risk, talking about alcohol use, screening for depression and so on.
I remember his left leg pain. He had had …
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Failure is a constant possibility in medicine
I imagined it like a scene from the hit television show “House, MD,” only I had no “MD” after my name, and my striking discovery had come not from the accumulated wisdom of years of experience but from a whopping five hours scouring the internet. In my exhilaration, I was perhaps a bit delusional, for I was convinced I had single-handedly cracked a mystery case that had left an entire …
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As (not) seen on TV
I occasionally dip my toe into the constant Internet flame wars over the generous term “vaccine skepticism,” and the less generous “vaccine denial.”
If you’re looking to see one of these quickly, Twitter always has some ongoing vaccine fireworks. The character limit of Twitter tends to compress the exchanges into hurled invectives, only occasionally punctuated by futile pleas for calm. Many quickly devolve into exchanges between posters of what they believe to …
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A physician wades into the swamp of vaccine denial
Illness is a disappointing and frustrating time. Nothing could be worse than a sickness which suddenly jolts you out of your daily routine, and forces you to confront a harsh new reality. That’s something that physicians should always remember as they go about their hectic work days. Doctors see patients at extremely low points in their lives.
The vast majority of physicians, and indeed all other health care professionals, are among …
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You’re disappointed with your health care. Here are 5 reasons why.
Recently, a new mother of twins in Columbus, Ohio, sent a text message to her doctor:
“Adam and I would like to introduce you to Ava Jain Cullum and Piper Jain Cullum. Their middle name was a no-brainer since we are so thankful for the huge role you had in getting them into this world … Both girls are doing fantastic. We are over the moon excited to have them in …
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Science is the truth we can bet our life on
