Tony (not his real name) was one of those patients who came to be a friend. I was his doctor for 11 years, guiding him through some very difficult times with a chronic autoimmune disease. He was a handyman, a fly fisherman, a husband, a father and a man of deep faith.
His condition was difficult to control, but he always offered a smile as he patiently and hopefully waded through …
In 2016, I published A Tale of Two Epidemics in the Harvard Health Blog. Sadly, our current pandemic has joined with health professional burnout and the opioid epidemic to gobsmack us with virus-infused spittle. Although doctors and nurses have stepped up heroically to save lives, many of us are depressed and dispirited. We’ve gotten sick. Some have died. Political nonsense has overshadowed reason – some have been …
Some may think I am a traitor.
I testified against one of our colleagues. And his employment was terminated.
It feels terrible. The type of gut-wrenching terrible that baits my tear and steals my sleep. I find myself rehashing the testimony, always startled afresh at the unambiguous answers.
“What were your concerns?” Counsel asks.
“Patient safety.”
“Do you think he should be employed at this company?”
“No.”
Seemingly simple words that seal a 60-month saga.
My first meeting …
When my boys were little, they responded to frustration differently. One would get angry, throw toys, yell, bite, refuse to cooperate. The other would become pitifully sad, appearing abandoned or lonely.
The sad one received more attention because when we see someone who’s sad, it pulls on our heartstrings and evokes innate compassion. Seeing another in a low energy, low pleasantness state makes us want to reach out and offer comfort. …
At some point, most of us will take on the role of caregiver. You may be caring for your parent or older family member, a spouse or partner, or a close friend. As the population ages, the number of people in the U.S. who are caregivers is growing significantly. Caregiving in the U.S. 2020, a report from The National Alliance for Caregiving, found that the number of …
In 2017, the CDC rolled out a “solution” to the opioid crisis. The recommendations, which were never intended to become laws, were mostly level of evidence three or below.
To put it another way, they were not robust, nor were they based on research in any way that matters. There was also no input from the pain medicine associations.
The premise was that we would solve the problem using what those of …
Doctors have already proven their worth. We have succeeded beyond what most of the population will achieve. And yet, there are certain goals we cannot seem to achieve. And the worst part is that we know we could do it, and the person getting in our way is someone we know well. We look at her in the mirror every day.
You want to lose weight, but it doesn’t last past …
A little over two years ago, my elderly mother was admitted to the hospital. Almost 90, she’d been short of breath for days — uncomfortable, perspiring, unable to sleep properly.
Blood tests, a chest X-ray, and an echocardiogram followed, whereupon her doctor pronounced: “You have congestive heart failure, Mrs. Les.”
I arrived on the scene the next morning to find her lying in bed, iPad open to Dr. Google, earnestly exploring the …
The U.S. government took an important step forward to help address the high incidence of health care professionals’ burnout, depression, and suicides. On March 18, 2022, President Biden signed the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act into law. The law outlines several requirements for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Key among them are to:
In the coming months, no one can predict with certainty what will happen with the war in Ukraine. But there’s one thing we do know for sure. The United States will soon reach an unthinkable milestone: One million Americans will have died of COVID-19. Over the last month, while many people were celebrating the rollback of mask mandates and other pandemic restrictions, over 1,000 Americans continued to quietly succumb to …
It’s been a year since I retired from almost 40 years as a pediatrician (most of that time as a pediatric hospitalist). What have I learned? What surprised me?
1. I have finally caught up on my sleep. I have been convinced that I still had a cumulative sleep deficit dating back to med school. After one solid year of sleeping 8-9 hours a night and waking up without an alarm …
I gasped at the guilty verdict that halted my indifferent scroll through the newsfeed.
In the course of her duties, a nurse who had accidentally administered the wrong drug, self-reported her mistake, and remorsefully admitted her error to a body of her peers was turned into a criminal.
If that standard was applied across the board to medical mishaps, health care as we know it would not exist. We will all be …
Recently, colleagues asked me how I solve burnout with communication. From the tone of their voice, they thought I was in over my head, and this was never going to work. I thought, wow, this is a great opportunity for me to share.
I came into the field of burnout through bullying. I’ve been the victim, and I’ve been the bystander-more times than I can count. I’ve been a locums physician …
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The Great Resignation. I doubt there is a medical practice out there that has not been affected by it. And experts predict we are just at the beginning. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ early data from 2022 shows that health care is among the top three industries increasing in monthly “quit rate,” second only to accommodation and food services. 2.6 million health care workers quit their jobs from May …
As an off-cycle medical student with an extended break between the completion of my M4 rotations and the conferment of my MD, I took a job as a medical scribe to keep myself active in the clinical setting (and, it must be said, provide myself with much-needed income).
I was atypical among most medical scribes, who are generally college students/graduates looking to obtain experience before applying to postgraduate medical programs, so …
Physician burnout continues to increase as we enter into year three of the COVID-19 pandemic. In August 2021, the Physicians Foundation reported data from a survey of 2,504 physicians conducted from May 26-June 9, 2021. In this survey, 61 percent of physicians reported experiencing burnout, an increase from 40 percent reported in the 2018 data. This burnout is often seen in those who, during their midlife, may feel what Brene …
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So many mixed emotions as I scrolled the multiple acknowledgments on social media this recent Doctors’ Day. Although it is nice to be recognized, are we just supposed to forget the recent hostility and disrespect? Can we ever really thank those on the frontlines who risked their lives during the pandemic? The recognition comes too late for the many doctors and trainees who did not survive. How do we honor …
Malpractice claims and disciplinary actions are unfortunate realities for too many physicians. A 2016 survey of physicians revealed that 34 percent of them had been sued, and 16.8 percent had been sued more than once. By the time a doctor is 54 years old, there is almost a 50 percent chance that they will have been sued. Disciplinary actions are far less common, but a comprehensive review …
In the wake of a harrowing year, I’m left wondering, is a career in emergency medicine worth it? Like so many of my colleagues, I suffered personal tragedies during the pandemic that exacerbated the incredible stress at work.
My brother died in March of 2021, three weeks after receiving a diagnosis of metastatic colon cancer, and tragically, just six months later, my mother also died unexpectedly.
I have no doubt that emergency …
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Doctors often find the electronic health record (EHR) time-consuming and annoying. However, quantitative estimates of physicians’ time on EHR tasks are sparse and not collated. We assembled evidence on hours dedicated to the EHR each day by physicians. The result is impressive – 4.5 hours.
A little background: EHR systems started in the late 1960s. The federal government implemented VistA in the 1970s in the Department of Veteran …
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