A few months before election day, a grassroots group was created on Facebook called Pantsuit Nation. As the name probably implies, it was a group for Clinton supporters, where we shared our positivity about Hillary Clinton as a candidate and offered endless empowering stories about why we were voting for her. The group was secret, but as its numbers swelled to over 3,000,000, it was hard to keep …
What this physician learned from Pantsuit Nation
We’ve come a long way from the 1940s and 1950s when men didn’t cry — not when they stubbed a toe or came back from the war and certainly not in front of strangers. In the last 20-plus years, we have seen a loosening up of the “stiff upper lip,” and we now see men crying in all sorts of places. …
What you think is wrong: Real men cry
I am writing why I as a physician voted for Donald Trump for president. This election has caused such outcry that I hesitate to put my name. I want to also say that I am a female physician. I feel that I need to express why I voted the way that I did.
I am still in an independent practice with one other physician. We are hanging on by a thread, …
This physician voted for Donald Trump. Here’s why.
In my home, we have two conversations: politics and medicine. The most vociferous discussions are around their product, health care. We know doctors on the right and left, Democrat and Republican, boisterous blues, rebellious reds and garrulous grays. Respecting opinions and debate, we love ‘em all. However, no matter on what side of the aisle they stand, which lever they pull, they share one trait. All physicians are deeply conservative. …
As soon as the microphone opened for Q&A at a conference I recently attended in New York City, a physician in the audience began his question with, “as a front-line physician.” Another asked from the perspective of someone “in the trenches.” And a third wondered how to provide medical care when we are getting “bombarded by mandates.”
As I speak to physicians across the country, I am increasingly jarred by these …
Doctors should stop using the language of war. Here’s why.
I have a memory of feeling overwhelming anger and animosity as a 10 year old. I was holding my father’s spot in the checkout line at Walmart in rural Illinois as he ran to grab the paper towels he had forgotten. He quickly darted back in line into the spot that I had saved him as he knew leaving me surrounded by candy for longer than a couple of minutes …
After the election: I am frustrated with how people have been expressing themselves
I recently had the privilege of speaking to a group of high school students who were interested in becoming doctors. A large number of them were volunteering in my hospital, and their coordinator asked me if I could spare some time to chat with them about life as a doctor and what they should be doing to get into medicine.
I remember as if it were yesterday when I was their …
For those who want to be doctors: Follow this piece of advice
Sometimes, I think that many folks see oncology as an acute care specialty: patients get cancer, get sick, and then they die. There’s an impression that we meet patients only for a moment in time before they are gone forever. But speak to any oncology specialist, and you will see nothing is farther from the truth. While …
Saying goodbye to a patient who’s your friend
Kicking off intern year means BBQs, team dinners, and block parties. Every invitation encourages us to bring our significant others, those people who define our existence outside of the hospital. And yet, hot dog and cold drink in hand, it seems we can’t help but alienate our non-medical partners by talking exclusively about the minutiae of our medical lives: our interesting patients, our frustrations, and our philosophies of medicine. They …
Burgers with a side of glomerulonephritis
Bill* stops by the clinic about once a week to use the phone in our lobby. Karen* asked if she could have her mail sent here. Once we bought Daniel* a bag of groceries, and Frank* calls to speak to our nurse every few days because he says, “I’m lonely.”
There is a national push to re-envision our primary care clinics as patient-centered medical homes, with the intention that a patient can get all their …
Sometimes patients need more than a medical home
Dear President-elect Trump,
I am writing to reach out to you, something I have never been inspired to do for a president-elect in the past. First, congratulations on your hard fought victory, and to your family. It was a surprise for many of us.
While it was probably a happy morning in your campaign and family, it was a pretty dark morning in my household. Our family was very supportive …
A physician writes to President-elect Trump
Naturopaths hate it when I draw attention to examples of patient harm resulting from naturopaths failing to uphold medical standards of care. The Ezekiel Stephan case was a prime example of the harm that can come from naturopaths trying to play doctor.
Nineteen-month-old Ezekiel Stephan died in 2012 from bacterial meningitis after his parents sought medical advice from naturopath Tracey Tannis. Per Tannis’s recommendation, Ezekiel’s parents treated him …
Naturopaths have no place providing health care to children
As of September 15, 85 children from 33 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have died due to infection with the flu during the 2015-2016 season.
Piper Lowery, who was a healthy and vibrant 12-year-old girl died from H1N1 Influenza almost one year ago. Her mother, Pegy Lowery, has gone public with her daughters’ story, to urge more parents to get flu shots for their children. I …
Not giving your child a flu shot? Read this letter from a grieving pediatrician first.
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Overwhelmed by the insanity of the bureaucratic bungle surrounding the dispensing of narcotic pain medication, I’m not sure where to begin. So I will begin with my experience.
I am a licensed physician in the state of Nevada. I retired from full-time practice in California and moved to Las Vegas, where I work part time. I have a friend who recently underwent a nephrectomy. She was discharged with a prescription phoned …
There is something wrong with a system that punishes legitimate patients in pain
I took a long walk with my dog today, and then I took a shower.
I like showers. I’ve always found them soothing and comforting. I can think in there. I can relax. I can’t hear the phone ring. I can’t see a television. Generally, no one bugs me while I’m in there. I come out clean, refreshed, and smelling and feeling good.
A shower can relieve aching muscles while removing the …
A physician’s poignant election thoughts
Yesterday I woke up to a startling realization: Like the dozens of women I treat, I will soon be entering “the change” as they call it, and I instantly was catapulted on to the other side of the exam table. While all the symptoms are not present, I’ve been noticing the signs, and when I reviewed the blood work that was done last week, it was clear. The “M” word …
The simple question that can save the lives of physicians
I started November 8th so hopeful. The polls were a comfortable 78. I wore my new berry colored pantsuit purchased especially for the election. I even wore my suffragette sash to work. The last face I saw before stepping into my office was a young woman in her 20s who gave me a thumbs up and that knowing smile that said, I’m with her too! Every woman I met had …
A call to arms for modern suffrage
Performance in the practice of medicine has always drawn scrutiny and evaluation. Lives are at stake and years of education, practice and certification are required, simply to have the chance to be a physician or nurse. But today we’re witnessing an unprecedented rise of ranking, rating, and scorekeeping of performance in our hospitals. And there’s growing evidence that more patients are making their hospital choices based on these ratings and …
Welcome to Yelp for hospitals. What should we do next?
A letter from a physician to her former employer.
This may seem to come out of the blue for you, but for me, it is something I have thought about often. You will likely not remember the details like I do, so let me spark your memory.
It was a Thursday, and my husband, who I have known since I was 19 — not unlike you and your wife — was diagnosed …
Doctors are not superhuman. They are simply human. And that’s OK.
The day after the 2016 election I went to work, and from medicine, I better understood the outcome of the election and the next goal of America.
Driving into the hospital, I called the ICU of an acute rehabilitation hospital to check on a patient. He had sepsis from a very complex urinary tract infection which exacerbated his chronic hypotension. He already had renal failure on dialysis and was on chronic …
Lessons in medicine can help America understand what it needs
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