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.

Tough talk is sometimes needed for your referral source

Neil Baum, MD

Physician

May 10, 2012

All of us would like, whenever possible, to have a bilateral referral arrangement with our colleagues. Have you ever experienced a situation in which you are sending patients to another physician and receiving no reverse referrals? Of course, you can change your referral source, hoping that the other physician will notice that there is a decrease in referrals and will call you to ask what happened, but do not hold …

The Hollywood treatment of oncologists

Don S. Dizon, MD

Physician

May 9, 2012

Recently, I passed my friend and colleague, Dr. Ekaterini Tsiapali, in the stairwell. We rarely get to catch up these days, so it was really quite a nice surprise to see her.

“What did you do this weekend?” I asked.

“I watched Wit, you know, the movie where Emma Thompson plays Dr. Vivian Bearing, a 50-year-old woman with terminal ovarian cancer? She’s such …

Read more…

The Hollywood treatment of oncologists

Being a physician is like trying to parent two thousand teenagers

Jordan Grumet, MD

Physician

May 9, 2012

I walked down the hospital corridor listlessly. My feet dragged as they fought each attempt to lift off the ground. My body was tired and achy. The phone calls the night before had been relentless. Each stolen moment of sleep was interrupted before a deep, restful state was reached. It was Monday morning.

I sat at the nursing station flipping through charts. A colleague across the table was staring intently at …

Sudden death makes a mockery of preventive medicine

Stewart Segal, MD

Physician

May 9, 2012

Here today, gone tomorrow. The older I get, the more often I get the call: “This is the ER at Any Hospital, can you hold for Dr. X?” Dr. X then comes on the line and tells me my patient had a catastrophic event, that the paramedics and ER crew did everything possible but that the patient expired.

My patient had no reason to die. He was relatively young and healthy. …

Death with dignity in the emergency department

Dike Drummond, MD

Physician

May 8, 2012

The ambulance crew rolled him into my ER breathless in his pajamas, O2 mask on his face, gasping for air, his short cropped hair a mess, standing straight up. Eugene was what the staff called a “frequent flyer.” As the nurse injected some IV Lasix I reviewed his chart to find a classic downward spiral.

It was a busy evening. The bays were full of the usual cuts, broken bones and …

Corruption of the medical literature is impossible to prevent

Bradley Evans, MD

Physician

May 8, 2012

Medicine improves regularly. Our tests, our surgeries, our medicines are better now than they were 10 years ago. The main driver of this improvement is the scientific method. Using this, the worse is discarded and the better retained. Doctors have to work hard to keep up with the progress. They rely on impartial and accurate information transmitted by articles, reviews, and CME material in order to advise and treat their …

No one told me that getting on with life after cancer would be so hard

Merry Jennifer Markham, MD

Physician

May 7, 2012

I met with a young patient recently, a woman who has been done with chemotherapy for lymphoma for close to a year. She was feeling well, and she had no symptoms of cancer, nothing that made her suspicious of a recurrence. After I examined her and reviewed her most recent CT scan and labs, I agreed. No recurrence. I wrote in my note, “NED,” the acronym for no evidence of …

Shift the cultural obsession away from skinny

Solmaz Amirnazmi, MD

Physician

May 6, 2012

If you Google “skinny definition” what will pop up is the following:

Adjective: (of a person or part of their body) Unattractively thin.

The word skinny according to Webster’s is defined as the following:

1. resembling skin: membranous
2a. lacking sufficient flesh: very thin: emaciated
2b. lacking usual or desirable bulk, quantity, qualities or significance.

So how did our culture take this word and use it to represent a goal, or rather set “skinny” as a …

Poor transitions in care result in unsafe patient care

Maria Maldonado, MD

Physician

May 5, 2012

I have participated in two transitions in care with my mother. The first was when she was released from the hospital after undergoing neurosurgery for a malignant brain tumor. Immediately after surgery of her brain tumor, she went through two weeks of intensive physical, occupational, and speech therapy. At the end of this period, the recommendation was clear. She required around the clock supervision. The plan was to send her …

A trauma surgeon on the pointlessness of gang violence

Bryan Hubbard, MD

Physician

May 3, 2012

Another call night in downtown L.A. It had not been a particularly eventful day: the usual offering of people hit by cars, falling off of things, and victims of man-made violence. Some injuries happen as a result of an accident, some as a result of carelessness, and of course many happen because of an intentional act. At about 1am the trauma pager went off; the text announced a “Level 1 …

How single payer can improve the access to cancer care

Aldebra Schroll, MD

Physician

May 3, 2012

The call came in the middle of a busy office day; the radiologist had found a suspicious area on the mammogram. I had received similar calls many times in my primary care practice. This time was different; the patient was me.

My first thought “thank God I’m insured.” My second thought was for all those who are not. It was hard enough waiting the week, until further testing could be performed; …

A doctor has difficulty making sense of medical bills

Manoj Jain, MD, MPH

Physician

May 2, 2012

Rarely do people think about medical costs when there is a medical emergency or an urgent need for a test. Recently, I was in such a situation.

A few days after a 22-hour international flight, the calf muscle in my right leg began to ache. If it were not for the recent flight, or if I were not a doctor, I would have just let it pass.

But long periods of sedentary …

Will the art of medicine be lost in the sea of guidelines?

Jordan Grumet, MD

Physician

May 1, 2012

I don’t like doctors!

It was always the same with Ronald. After years of absence, he would appear at my doorstep with some particular problem that had progressed to alarming proportions. Once, it was the abscess that seemed to swallow up his whole back. The next time, it was a hernia that had grown to the size of a grapefruit hanging out of his undergarments. But today was different. In fact, …

Be honest with yourself about what your true passion is

Susan Biali Haas, MD

Physician

April 30, 2012

In the first week of the 5th grade, our class had a special music afternoon. It was our opportunity to try out the different instruments in the school band. We were to make a decision, that very day, about which instrument we would play almost every day for our school music careers.

I was so excited. I had been busy deafening my parents for years by creating high-pitched squawking melodies on …

How money influences our decisions as doctors

Ido Weinberg, MD

Physician

April 30, 2012

When you ask young medical students why they want to be doctors, you will probably get all sorts of answers. Some may say they like people and want to interact with them and offer them help. Some students will believe this is their calling. Others still may state they are intrigued by the scientific mysteries the human body is filled with. From my experience, not many medical students just starting …

We often feel at a loss for words when the news is bad

Kate Land, MD

Physician

April 29, 2012

Something difficult has unfolded around here lately and when news got out a dear friend came by with a gift of a story. She told us about a day years ago when one neighbor heard the other had breast cancer. The well neighbor was shocked and saddened. She was at a loss and wanted to help; wanted to do something but, what? In a daze but motivated none the less, …

Every emergency medicine shift teaches something

Marlene Buckler, MD

Physician

April 28, 2012

Tonight a 17 year-old boy came to the emergency room complaining of headache. As I entered his room, in my usual hurry to do an assessment as expeditiously as possible, so as to get on to the next case and attempt to avoid the inevitable backup of patients so common in our ER, I was struck by the vulnerable demeanor of the patient before me. The triage nurse’s report assured …

When doctors are forced to accept malpractice case settlements

William Sullivan, DO, JD

Physician

April 27, 2012

Suppose your malpractice insurance company wants to settle a medical malpractice case against you – even though the case has no merit.

In many cases, insurance policy language may allow the insurance company to do just that.

In the 2011 case of Mohan Papudesu, MD v. Medical Malpractice Joint Underwriting Assn. of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Supreme Court allowed an insurer to settle a case on behalf of the defendant physician …

On the day we cure cancer

James C. Salwitz, MD

Physician

April 27, 2012

On the day we cure cancer I will rise in morning dark. I will stand in last night cold, and watch stars fade. The light will come and a following breeze blow. On that incredible dawn, there will be brilliance. I will make sunrise rounds on the day we cure cancer.

I will stay late and breakfast with my wife. We will talk about flowers, kids and books. I will stand …

Read more…

On the day we cure cancer

Why academic medical centers need a stress test

Michael Weitekamp, MD

Physician

April 27, 2012

A group of nine medical specialty societies recently announced the “Choose Wisely” campaign, targeting 45 commonly performed medical procedures and tests that offer little or no value in improving health. These interventions waste precious health care resources, lead to erroneous conclusions and/or false security, spur unwarranted additional interventions, and cause patient harm. Among the appropriately indicted procedures was cardiac stress testing of asymptomatic, low-risk patients. There is an old …

Physician

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts