Communication protocols exist for a reason
An excerpt from The Mumbo Jumbo Fix: A Survival Guide for Effective Doctor-Patient-Nurse Communication.
Team building is a popular trend in health care. It promotes cooperation, trust and respect, improves communication, and enhances patient outcomes. Most of the time.
But the camaraderie and familiarity of working with the same group of people …
A physician in denial after being diagnosed with COVID-19
Over the last three years, we have faced the original COVID-19, followed by Omicron, Delta, and monkeypox.
It is apropos that on the third anniversary of COVID-19, we are facing the tripledemic of COVID, influenza, and RSV.
After almost three years of not getting COVID-19, I started believing that my childhood fantasies about me being superman were true and that my immune system was superpowered with bullet-proof antibodies that would keep me …
Perfectionism will kill you
Every doctor wants to be perfect. We want to make sure our diagnosis is perfect. Our treatment plan is perfect, and our outcome will be perfect. Patients want the perfect doctor. They want us to get it right on the first try, each and every time. The problem is perfectionism, as hard as we try to achieve it or wish for it, is not attainable. Perfectionism will kill you.
All I ever wanted to be was a nurse [PODCAST]
How female social conditioning leads to burnout
There has been a lot of talk about physician burnout over the past few years, and as an occupational medicine physician, I’m happy to see that conversation is taking place. For too long, we just saw burnout as an acceptable hazard that just comes with the job.
But it’s become clear to me that there’s a big missing piece in the discussion of burnout — particularly when we try to answer …
How medicine is broken
I read KevinMD regularly. I see a lot of stories about how broken medicine is: how doctors are retiring, leaving early because they are overworked or underappreciated, or being manipulated by corporate medicine. All these complaints are valid. There are also articles about how residency is brutal and causes mental distress to trainees, with the onerous hours and unrealistic expectations. That, too, is true. Medical training, at least in my experience, is …
My personal cemetery
I love listening to podcasts on my way to work, and I was most excited when the second season of Dr. Death started. If you didn’t listen to the first season, it was about Dr. C. Duntsch, a neurosurgeon in the Dallas area who should never have been operating on people. He even left his best friend paralyzed from the neck down due to a botched surgery.
The second season follows …
Cancer: Why silence and anonymity are also courageous
Recently, I found a lump that was diagnosed as breast cancer. It is Stage IA, with a high chance of cure, but of course, more information might change that sooner or later. I have entered the uncertain world of being a patient – before this, as a physician myself, I happily avoided seeing the doctor.
While my cancer should be curable, and this will just be a …
The duality of being a female physician
I am a female cardiologist that graduated from medical school almost 20 years ago. Although my core personality has remained constant, I have been viewed through multiple different optics. What I find most interesting is that while most of my patients would unanimously agree that I am a smart, talented, and dedicated professional, I have never achieved this level of validation from other professionals in medicine.
I stay the same, but …
An empowered woman’s guide to better health [PODCAST]
Sexual health is health: It’s time to embrace that in medicine
For many of us, while in medical school and residency, sexual health history was mostly taught from a disease standpoint. If a patient had a complaint about sexual dysfunction, had a symptom or concern about a sexually transmitted infection, needed contraception, or had specific questions related to the reproductive system, then we took a sexual history. Sexual health history taking in many programs is limited to an elective in the …
Gender bias is powerful and harmful
The Boston Globe recently published an article on Dr. Jane Weeks, an oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who declined treatment for breast cancer, passed out at work due to a pulmonary embolism in 2012, and ultimately died of breast cancer in 2013. I was a first-year fellow training at Dana-Farber in 2012 and vividly recall hearing that a well-known oncologist had passed out in the cafeteria. There were many …
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Who gets to succeed in medical school: Improving medical student outcomes that matter
As I mentioned in my last article, “Who gets to graduate from medical school,” I find one consistent, uncomfortable truth: Whatever led to the gap in academic performance before medical school is likely to still be present and persistent during one’s medical education journey. The lack of access, inequitable distribution of opportunity, familial responsibilities, socioeconomic disparities, or systemic barriers that kept students from utilizing their full academic potential in …
A personal mission to get obese patients on GLP-1 agonists [PODCAST]
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“Obesity is not the consequence of bad behaviors it is a disease that finally has effective, safe, lasting treatments. Patients with obesity have been marginalized long enough. We, especially health care providers, have got to start taking …
Enjoying the spirit of the holidays with fewer spirits
The winter holidays are almost here. And it’s the time of year when food abounds and alcohol sales double. So, in the spirit of wellness and health, I’m sharing some ideas for alcohol substitutes, safe drinking, and some general information about alcohol. Enjoying the holidays with good company, food, and drink is a treat. But too much alcohol can be problematic, especially when taking prescription medications or when struggling with …
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Start walking to improve health and well-being
I just walked 120 km over five days on the South Downs Way along the southeast coast of the United Kingdom. It was a beautiful walk through the pastoral English countryside, culminating in the dramatic chalk cliffs near the coastal town of Eastbourne. While not a technically difficult walk, there were certainly enough hills to climb, high winds, and rainy days to make us ready for our evening pub dinners.
Lack of innovation is leading to disparities in diabetes care
Having spent over 30 years of my career in diabetes, first as a practicing diabetologist and later as a diabetes researcher, I’ve met many people with diabetes. And while diabetes care has evolved significantly over my career, I’m amazed to see that daily insulin management is just as complex and manual for many people, particularly those with type 2 diabetes (T2D) — daily insulin management is just as complex and …
Leading an organizational culture change? Consider an apology first. [PODCAST]
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The slow progression of aging: Let compassion reign
There is one guarantee in life: you will age, no matter how hard you try not to. Some age with more grace than others, and some age so quickly it’s astonishing. Aging can come quickly or slowly, it is not necessarily determined by your age but the whole dynamics of the life you have lived and perhaps your relatives’ lives before you.
Aging isn’t just the change from dark hair to …
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A world without antidepressants: What could possibly go wrong?
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Past Week
-
The hidden bias in how we treat chronic pain
-
Residency as rehearsal: the new pediatric hospitalist fellowship requirement scam
-
The hidden impact of denials on health care systems
-
A world without antidepressants: What could possibly go wrong?
-
Why no medical malpractice firm responded to my scientific protocol
-
Health workers deserve care too: How to protect their mental health
-
Past 6 Months
-
Internal Medicine 2025: inspiration at the annual meeting
-
Doctors don’t need yoga, they need time to smoke
-
What happened to real care in health care?
-
The silent crisis hurting pain patients and their doctors
-
How to build a culture where physicians feel valued [PODCAST]
-
Flatline: Our nation is dying, and we’re ignoring the signs
-
Recent Posts
-
Health workers deserve care too: How to protect their mental health
-
A world without antidepressants: What could possibly go wrong?
-
The truth about GLP-1 medications for weight loss: What every patient should know
-
The moment I knew medicine needed more than science
-
A faster path to becoming a doctor is possible—here’s how
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Misconceptions about food allergy safety in the skies [PODCAST]
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