An excerpt from The Birth of Joy: A Female Physician’s Healing Journey through Childhood Trauma, Midlife Burnout, and the Rediscovery of Passion and Purpose.
As an OB/GYN, I had found my calling. I loved delivering babies, performing surgery, and the long-term relationships I built with my patients. But I became irritable, angry, and resentful. My life became my work–at the expense of my family and myself. My work was my …
The impact of personality in health care
The health care sector’s success hinges on the diverse personalities within its workforce. Embracing this diversity, particularly the dynamics of introversion and extroversion, is not just beneficial for patient care but crucial for the well-being and job satisfaction of health care providers. Studies have shown that a diverse personality mix in health care settings can …
Call it what you want: nursing home, skilled nursing facility, rehab center, convalescent home, or post-acute care. They are all the same and a common destination should you survive a recent hospitalization.
But they all have an existing reputation and can ultimately diminish the dignity of older adults. Never in my four decades of practice has anyone ever said, “Please, Dr. Dorio, send me to a nursing home!”
As a geriatric physician, …
There are a lot of things that I’ve forgotten since 1984, the year I started medical school. But I will never forget the Dean of Students’ proclamation on the very first day of class: “You must dress to inspire confidence,” he thundered. But that wasn’t the last of it. Over and over, our dapper dean schooled us on the importance of professionalism. Whether he said it overtly or not, we …
It’s been almost two years since I left clinical medicine. In the midst of our country’s health care attrition crisis, stories of early retirement, burnout, and career transitions aren’t hard to find. While each of those accounts brings a deeper understanding of the problem, as well as potential strategies to remedy it, this is not a story about why I left medicine. Instead, it is an observation of how medicine …
Months after I left him, I could still feel the pain he inflicted. He not only weaponized my insecurities but also demeaned the things about myself that I loved, insidiously dismantling my sense of self until nothing remained.
I even doubted my ability as a psychiatrist, and I hated him for that.
“Talking to you is like trying to read a Step 2 question!” he had sneered. “I don’t know anyone who …
During her time working with people who were dying, nurse Bronnie Ware found that one of the top 5 regrets is, “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” (Source: The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware)
How do you know if you are living a life true to you? What steps may you take …
It took a traumatic spinal cord injury in 2008 to transform my life.
The experience was a radical awakening. I was told that I would never walk again.
On one fine spring day in 2008, my life changed forever. I was walking to work when I was hit by a car at high speed. My body was flung into the sky, and as I hovered, like a slow-motion movie, a few thoughts …
Strategic thinking: The Doctor Strange of health care. Health care professionals, much like Doctor Strange, often engage in complex decision-making, foreseeing multiple outcomes to choose the best path for patient care. Your ability to strategize and anticipate is crucial in saving lives and ensuring quality care.
Innovation: Channeling Iron Man. Innovation is key in health care. Just as Iron Man tinkers and invents, you too innovate daily – whether through cutting-edge surgical techniques, …
Stealth firing is a term used to describe the cold, unexpected firing of employees by their managers and/or individuals from human resources (HR) departments – sometimes without the manager’s awareness and even after years of loyalty for some. The Bureau of Labor Statistics cannot adequately track this statistic because its definition lacks precision, but it is not uncommon in certain practice areas, such as law, tech, and financial firms. The …
An excerpt from A Surgeon’s Knot.
The phone jarred Jackson Cooper, MD’s weary, anxious brain into consciousness from the edge of sleep. He jumped up, dropping the receiver on the cold floor of the call room. “Hello,” he said, tension entering the new intern’s mind.
“Dr. Cooper,” the nurse’s voice said nervously. She almost stuttered as she spoke. “It . . . it’s . . . Mr. Simpson, he’s bleeding. I …
Children’s hospitals are acclaimed for their outstanding care, and they would be my absolute choice for my child’s hospital needs. Nevertheless, there is a pressing concern that the underlying philosophy of these institutions is shifting, with financial pressures incentivizing competition rather than cooperation in the field of pediatrics. If hospitals were to dominate primary care, it could potentially exacerbate the departure from a value-driven approach, which is crucial for advancing …
A recent discussion with a partner led us to list our academic goals for 2024.
It’s a process many of us go through each year. What did we accomplish throughout the year? Could we have done better? Is there more to do? How could we improve? What’s on tap for the upcoming year?
It’s an annual ritual, I know.
We reviewed his overall plan and went through how he could accomplish his professional …
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When you are sued for medical malpractice, your malpractice carrier establishes your duties to it, and your lawyer establishes your duties to him or her. Let me be clear – when you are sued for medical malpractice, you have no greater duty than to yourself. A duty is a commitment or an expectation on you to perform properly in accordance with certain circumstances. A duty may arise from a system …
Have you ever found yourself trapped in a job that seemed to suffocate your spirit? The kind of place where stepping through the doors invoked an overwhelming sense of dread, and encountering management left you feeling like your kindness and loyalty were taken for granted? Perhaps you’ve experienced a workplace where basic concessions seemed like an impossible ask, and your plea for them fell on deaf ears. In such an …
In 2023, roughly 2 million people will have been diagnosed with some form of cancer, and while cancer can affect everyone, it does not affect everyone equally. Women – especially women of color and women with lower socioeconomic standing – often face significant hurdles when it comes to accessing the health care they need to prevent, treat, and survive cancer.
The downstream effect
Although there have been significant efforts to address …
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The universe can be a very confusing place.
Quite often, things will happen together or one-after-another that will cause even learned people to connect two events as causative when they are not. These misattributions are not just of academic concern. They can have real-world consequences.
In 1347, a plague began to sweep through Europe. At the time, no one knew what caused plagues, and the germ theory of disease was centuries away. …
I leaned over the bed’s railing, straining to hear the morphine-slurred words spilling out of his chapped lips. “Make them stop laughing,” he said, referring to the cohort of young nurses giggling around the code cart in the hallway. “I’m in here suffering, in pain, and I shouldn’t have to hear laughter. Tell them to stop. Tell their boss. It’s so unprofessional.” After spitting out the last spiteful words of …
My overall feeling is that independent practices cannot survive in isolation, nor can they single-handedly drive the transformation needed for value-based care, population health, or to ensure that the most vulnerable have the primary care access they need. We do require financial partners and investment. However, it’s crucial to ensure that we align with the right partners who share a vision that will continuously improve pediatrics for the long term.
During …
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I was recently reminded that you always learn something from your patients, no matter how long your medical profession is. I was reminded of this when I had the opportunity to treat a young person in transition. I reviewed the chart before walking into the exam room. Among other things, it listed the patient’s chief complaint (i.e., in this case, lower back pain), age of nineteen, female sex, and a …
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