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.

Is what is good for doctors always good for patients and public health?

Vincent DeGennaro, Jr., MD, MPH

Physician

September 22, 2016

The Haitian doctors’ strike ended recently, and it is unclear if there are any winners. The conditions in which the striking doctors — medical residents in Haiti’s public hospitals, to be precise — work are appalling, and the low pay was galling, but without the doctors, hospitals shut their doors and the poor were left to take care of their own illnesses and injuries for nearly five months.

At issue were …

Narrative medicine for social and physician wellness

Jean Robey, MD

Physician

September 22, 2016

Physician wellness begins in realizing our identity in medicine and society. Shamans, priest, and healers have existed in ancient times and in small and large indigenous tribes since man began to gather together in social packs. The unique role of tribal and community leaders who guarded health and wellness was understood as important for the whole of society.

All doctors have degrees of empathy. We as an order select for this …

The circus surrounding Hillary’s pneumonia

Dr. Saurabh Jha

Physician

September 21, 2016

It is selfish of a leader of a nation to drop dead during office. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, died suddenly at 74, apparently from a ruptured aneurysm. His aneurysm, allegedly, had something to do with Edwina Mountbatten, the wife of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India. Shortly after Nehru’s death, Pakistan attacked India. Nehru’s replacement, Lal Bahadur Shastri, died mysteriously in Tashkent two years after Nehru’s death, …

Sleep is a medical necessity

Sophy Feng, MD

Physician

September 21, 2016

We have all heard the grumblings regarding the 80-hour resident workweek. This is due to the opinion that jobs after residency typically require hours that surpass 80 hours a week.

But, why? Why does medicine have to be this way?

I have worked 100 plus hour weeks for over 20 years, and I am exhausted. I am burned out and I can not catch up because of the sleep deprivation.

This …

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Sleep is a medical necessity

What truly palliates? Do we choose or do we allow the patient to choose?

Divya Yerramilli, MD

Physician

September 21, 2016

The day I met Mr. Lightfoot, he was a medical curiosity on teaching rounds, “a great example of a Sister Mary Joseph’s Nodule,” a sign of metastatic stomach cancer. Earl was lying in a hospital bed in the cancer unit of the hospital, his stomach completely distended, nauseous and vomiting, unable to eat anything. He had undergone a cycle of chemotherapy only days before.

I organized Mr. Lightfoot into a problem …

I question the ethics of any doctor who sells supplements to patients

Linda Girgis, MD

Physician

September 20, 2016

I was seeing a patient who brought me a bag of supplements she bought from another specialist. I looked skeptical and then she pulled out the list of lab results the other doctor ordered on her. I reviewed the results with her and asked why all these tests were ordered in the first place, some of which I had never ordered in my life. She said she told the specialist …

What medicine can learn from Wells Fargo

Andrew Spector, MD

Physician

September 20, 2016

In 1996, Jerry Maguire was fired for advocating a reduction in his sports management firm’s client base thereby risking the firm’s profits. While writing his infamous memo (or as he would tell you, his mission statement), he recalled his mentor’s advice: “The key to this business is personal relationships.”

Tom Cruise’s voiceover continues: “Suddenly, it was all pretty clear. The answer was fewer clients. Less money. More attention. Caring for them, …

If doctors wanted to be wealthy, they would have become UPS truck drivers

Neil Baum, MD

Physician

September 19, 2016

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Do doctors make too much money?

I don’t think so. I read with great interest the blog by Dr. Michael Kirsch defending physicians’ salaries: “If you think doctors make too much money, think about this.” Unfortunately, the public’s perception of physicians’ incomes has been that physicians make too much money.

Whenever I hear this remark from patients or even non-physicians, I …

A hospital bullies a physician and threatens termination for her disability

Anonymous

Physician

September 19, 2016

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to you with great sadness, but with relentless determination to ignite change. I am a doctor with a disability. Two years ago I began residency training in pediatrics. The privilege was overwhelming as I stood a doctor in the very halls where I had been wheeled in as a patient with a brain tumor. I couldn’t believe that I had actually made it, …

You’ll be shocked and saddened when you find out what doctors really do

Roy Benaroch, MD

Physician

September 18, 2016

The television doctors: Striding purposefully through the ER, giving orders, surrounded by a gaggle of eager learners and a super-team of nurses and techs. Or spending hours operating, then sipping martinis while waiting for the next disaster. Maybe saving lives in between daydreams and liaisons with hot colleagues and nurses. All in a day’s work!

Maybe not. A new study looked at what doctors really do all day. In the real …

How can patients get better if they live in homes tailor-made for disease?

Franklin Warsh, MD, MPH

Physician

September 17, 2016

I’m new to the job of coroner. Though I’m sure it won’t surprise anyone to hear that it’s nothing like C.S.I.; you measure the wait for test results in months, not minutes. It’s not like Quincy, M.E. either, where the same person responsible for the autopsy hops about cracking a case that somehow befuddles police. Most deaths are natural, with a good number of accidents and suicides, despite the media’s …

I wish my doctor knew

Niran S. Al-Agba, MD

Physician

September 16, 2016

Recently the New York Times published an article, “What Kids Wish Their Teachers Knew.” As a pediatrician, I have spent a good part of my lifetime fighting for the health and welfare of our young people. They are the future. We owe our children a safe, caring, stable childhood whenever possible. Outside of a supportive family, a long-term family physician or pediatrician can be an important role model …

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I wish my doctor knew

Why hospitals shouldn’t use their miracle cases to advertise

Eric Beam, MD

Physician

September 16, 2016

On the way to work the other day, I heard a radio commercial advertising a local hospital network’s cardiac care services. In it, a patient’s daughter related her overwhelmingly positive experience with the hospital team that treated her 90-year-old father with a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), a minimally-invasive alternative to open heart surgery.

It was a good commercial. It had all the elements: “I was worried at first, the doctors …

I owe it to my father to argue for death with dignity

Christine Jette

Physician

September 16, 2016

It started, as far as I know, with a twinge. A back spasm in a healthy, but prone to back spasms, 68-year-old man, who soon was reduced to near tears in the parking lot of the Thai restaurant where we’d gone to get take out. It was early summer, and I was on a short visit to the east coast. My mother was the one to worry about. She had …

Helping during hospice: Being present is much more important than being busy

Katherine Arnup, PhD

Physician

September 15, 2016

“Food is love,” my partner jokes as she unloads mountains of food from her latest trip to Costco. “I can’t help it! I’m Jewish!” she protests, when I wonder aloud how the two of us will ever manage to consume all that food.

As the lineups at superstores attest, for a great many people being able to prepare and serve meals is a vital way of showing love.

I never expected to …

The social history: Our patients are more than their diseases

David Goldberg, MD

Physician

September 15, 2016

“Any alcohol use? Any tobacco use? Any other drugs?”

These are the three main questions that most health care providers ask their patients when documenting a social history on a note.

“What stressors do you have in your life? What social support do you have? What is your home life like? What do you do for fun? Do you wear a helmet when you ride a bike? Do you wear a seatbelt?”

I …

What this family physician learned from his dog

Justin Reno, MD

Physician

September 15, 2016

I, much like many others, made a terrible decision on my 21st birthday. Mine, however, didn’t involve alcohol; I adopted a dog.

She was a scruffy, brindle-coated, malnourished 30-pound terrier puppy. So in between organic chemistry, physics, Spanish, studying for the MCAT, and multiple other classes, I had to housebreak a puppy. Those glorious visions I had of dog ownership hadn’t included several key aspects, like cleaning up accidents, cleaning up …

Physicians must lead. Here’s why.

Patty Fahy, MD

Physician

September 14, 2016

Some docs consistently say “no thanks” to formal leadership roles. They prefer not to run for a board position, become department chief, or step into an executive role because their passion and focus is patient care. This primary interest in the core work shows up in other professions, too. My brother, a mechanical engineer (I’d say “brilliant mechanical engineer,” but he might read this), eschewed management positions his whole career. …

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Physicians must lead. Here’s why.

Doctoring requires developing relationships with people

Jean Robey, MD

Physician

September 14, 2016

Cleveland Clinic published an article that cited the work of Cynthia Kubu, PhD, a neuropsychologist in Cleveland Clinic’s department of psychiatry and psychology. She examined the potential of focusing on relationship center care to help provide good care and long-term care giving for physicians. Cleveland Clinic uses the REDESM (relationship, establishment, development, and engagement) which focuses on the provider-patient relationship as the premise for care. The idea is a physician …

The hospital is a microcosm of America’s melting pot

Roxana Daneshjou, MD, PhD

Physician

September 14, 2016

“Doctor, why can’t my mother breathe?” he asked, eyes full of concern as he watched his mother’s chest heave like someone who has spent too long underwater.

I turned up her oxygen as we discussed the possibilities we were testing for: infection, a reaction to chemotherapy, blood clots. Her breathing eased as we spoke, and in turn, I saw some of her son’s anxiety dissipate. As our conversation came to a …

Physician

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