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Inside the cancer waiting room where hope hangs in the balance

Conditions

March 17, 2024

I sat there, frozen in time, full of fear, full of anxiety. Waiting for my time to “face the music,” but this wasn’t a dance party.

My fellow patients, complete strangers, were seated about me, and each of us kept a safe distance apart from each other—a carry-over from the pandemic, I guess. All of us waiting to get our news—a thumbs up or thumbs down.

For me, it is a yearly …

EMR shutdown highlights vulnerability in health care IT

Cathleen Gould, MD

Tech

March 17, 2024

Imagine that Elon Musk had decided to buy Epic instead of the platform formerly known as Twitter. Imagine that he had developed his own EMR and informed every Epic user that they should watch their email for their assigned migration dates to the system he had developed, to be completed in the next 60 days. Anyone who has ever participated in the installation of a first EMR or the migration …

Redefining primary care: a holistic approach to well-being [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

March 16, 2024

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Join Preyasha Tuladhar, a family physician, as she shares her unique approach to primary care. She delves into the integration of biomedical, psychosocial, and cultural considerations in developing personalized treatment plans for her …

A geriatrician’s transformative walk in Italy

Paula Rochon, MD

Physician

March 16, 2024

I just walked about 90 km in six days along the Via Matildica del Volto Santo between Mantua and Lucca through the Appenine mountains in the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy. This beautiful, lesser-known route, crossing regions once ruled by the formidable Countess Matilda of Canossa, offered a unique blend of physical challenges and the opportunity to connect with history.

As a geriatrician committed to enhancing the health and well-being …

How to face our mistakes: Using the military’s after-action review to improve morbidity and mortality conferences

Neel Vahil, MD

Physician

March 16, 2024

Nearly three decades ago, David Hilfiker, a family medicine physician in rural Minnesota, authored an essay in the New England Journal of Medicine titled “Facing our mistakes.” In the piece, he chronicles three major medical mistakes he made during his long career practicing medicine. Some of the mistakes are horrifying and others simply tragic, but he is brutally honest and forthcoming—displaying a frank self-reflection that is too frequently absent …

Bridging the gap between public perception and reality in health care [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

March 15, 2024

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

In this episode, we are joined by Sarah Smithson, an internal medicine physician, as we discuss the stark disparities between the experiences within clinical settings and the broader public’s perception. Throughout our conversation, …

Time wasted, care hampered: How antiquated tech hurts patient engagement

Joshua Reischer, MD

Tech

March 15, 2024

As physicians, we’re trained to dig into a patient’s story to make a diagnosis. Ideally, we have time to get to know the person in front of us and get a comprehensive understanding of the reason for their visit. In an ideal world, we have the information we need to make an accurate diagnosis and set them on a treatment pathway that will improve their quality of life.

That’s the aspiration. …

The fifth vital sign

Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA

Physician

March 15, 2024

An excerpt from Narrative Medicine: The Fifth Vital Sign.

“If you don’t take a temperature, you can’t find a fever.”
— Samuel Shem, The House of God

I enrolled in a creative writing course at a local university to better understand the parameters of narrative medicine. I learned about the pillars of the narrative, such as poetry and creative nonfiction, and our class …

Read more…

The fifth vital sign

Assisted suicide is the wrong prescription

Joseph E. Marine, MD, MBA

Physician

March 15, 2024

America expends much time, effort, and resources when people become seriously ill, bringing many face-to-face with their own mortality. For patients and their families, it is an emotional and difficult time under the best of circumstances. As a cardiologist, I participate in the decision-making that comes at this time, and it has provided me with the honor of delivering care that has allowed patients to rebound from acute illness and …

To the physician who didn’t match: You are not forgotten

Amna Shabbir, MD

Education

March 15, 2024

Match day. Many of you are rejoicing in the outcomes, while many of you might be experiencing these “other” emotions. They might sound like rejection, shame, hopelessness, despair, disappointment, anger, exhaustion, or self-doubt.

The wounds from this year’s match might still be fresh, and I do not want to thrust any toxic positivity on you. It’s okay if you are feeling awful right now; it’s natural. Give yourself time to process …

Anesthesia is not my name: Knowing each other’s name improves results in the OR

Dr. Zsuzsa Csik

Physician

March 15, 2024

As an anesthesiologist, I recall countless occasions when colleagues from the other side of the drape addressed me, like, “Anesthesia, did the patient receive antibiotics?” or “Anesthesia, I need more muscle relaxation here!”

Especially in my first years as a young physician full of insecurities, it intimidated me, so I never complained and only spoke up when vital.

Nowadays, I grasp the unspoken rules of the OR and can navigate the daily …

Understanding and addressing urinary incontinence [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

March 14, 2024

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

We tackle the important topic of urinary incontinence with Sarah Boyles, a urogynecologist. Join us as we explore the often overlooked but impactful effects of urinary incontinence on individuals’ quality of life, its …

Reducing political influence in health care: Building trust, transparency, and equity

Donald H. Marks, MD, PhD

Physician

March 14, 2024

In our hyperpolarized and political society, it seems everything has a political angle, including health care. I think that some of this conflict is unnecessarily but intentionally introduced by special interest groups to force a point, a change in policy, or the acceptance of societal positions that are controversial for many and not universally accepted. Examples include LGBT issues, gender changing or affirming care, abortion access, birth control, health …

Doctor charged after treating a DEA agent

L. Joseph Parker, MD

Physician

March 14, 2024

As I wait for the next patient to be brought in, I start reviewing their chart. Past medical records have been received and scanned in per protocol, I see. This won’t be the first time I’ve seen his chart as he had to submit medical records and be approved before he could get an appointment to see me.

A forty-something African American male has been complaining of chronic back pain for …

Blockchain technology in population health management

Regine Severe

Tech

March 14, 2024

Blockchain technology may revolutionize population health management. Patients and health care practitioners face the challenge of securely accessing, managing, integrating, and sharing health records. While blockchain is gaining attention in various industries, its application in health care and population health is still preliminary.

Data security and interoperability

By combining data security measures with innovative approaches to interoperability, blockchain technology offers a promising solution for overcoming the challenges inherent in traditional health care …

The doctor’s digital twin will see you now

Scott Ellner, DO, MPH

Tech

March 14, 2024

Imagine a day when you wake up from a perfect six hours and thirty-six minutes of restorative sleep. Overnight, a wearable device or implanted chip has been continuously monitoring and capturing a comprehensive set of your biological and physiological variables. The ingested data from the variables collected is processed through an adaptive machine learning algorithm to create a physician-directed longevity score to increase health span—the length of time a person …

From passion to burnout: When a doctor’s love hurts

Mary Braun, MD

Physician

March 14, 2024

If only I had managed Mrs. Smith’s blood pressure better, she wouldn’t have had that car accident.

If I had made the case for a statin better, Mr. Wu would not have had the diverticulitis episode.

These types of thoughts have been with me for all of my decades of practicing medicine. Somehow, I’m supposed to blame myself for things that are less than ideal about my patients’ situations and about which …

Navigating the health system with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

March 13, 2024

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

We sit down with Denise Reich, a patient advocate, to explore her journey of navigating the healthcare system with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS). Denise shares her experiences from the initial mention of EDS during …

Remembering Colgan Air Flight 3407: a medical responder’s story

Veronica Bonales, MD

Physician

March 13, 2024

Fifteen years later and I can still see it.

I wasn’t able to go to the scene that night, but several of my colleagues did. As morning broke, a new shift of my colleagues went to the scene. And on the next morning, I did. We were there to provide medical support to the hundreds of investigators, evidence collectors, workers, and firemen who were helping with the scene. We were working …

Why we all need to care about the primary care physician shortage

American College of Physicians

Physician

March 13, 2024

It is somewhat cliché these days to talk about physician workforce shortages, but recent data highlights that the problem is getting worse. Two research publications this past year were particularly alarming.

First, in a recent analysis of internal medicine resident career plans from 2019 to 2021, only 9.4% of internal medicine residents indicated they planned to pursue a career …

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