When I quit my clinic job after four waves of the COVID-19 pandemic as an intensivist, I decided not to work in direct patient care for a while. I expected harsh criticism from my colleagues. Surprisingly, that never happened. The feedback was unexpected, at least for me. Most of my colleagues admired my decision. They called me brave for taking the leap, and many admitted thinking about the same for …
An excerpt from Fifty Years a Doctor: The Journey of Sickness and Health, Four Plagues and the Pandemic.
It took me years to fully realize what a unique residency program I had enjoyed in my one-year general surgical training in Honolulu.
Early in this residency, we had state-mandated education in leprosy. All …
The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in many insidious handmaidens among its foul equipage. From Zoom meetings and school closures to masks and lockdowns, our world was torn asunder and, eventually, rendered anew into a place where almost everything has been changed, by large degrees and small, perceptibly and imperceptibly. It will come as no surprise that medicine is foremost among the more obviously perceptible areas of life that have been irrevocably …
I’m a pediatrician and have been practicing for 29 years. I currently own a solo practice.
Here is a story I wrote years after a patient encounter during my residency in 1993. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was an experience that would shape my career in general pediatrics.
Marcus is the worst case of child abuse I’ve seen to date. He’s two years old. His mom’s boyfriend dips …
We pay more than any other nation for health care, yet we have suffered the single biggest decline in life expectancy since WWII. Something went wrong. At a time of record inflation and rising taxes, isn’t it time we stopped to ask where the money is going, what exactly we are paying for, and why?
Astonishingly, nearly half the federal budget goes to health care in one way or another. Either …
For parents looking to fund their child’s education, a 529 plan is an optimal way to grow savings through investments and gain significant tax breaks in the process. But as we have previously explored, investments that grow your own portfolio may be causing harm to others by supporting companies that don’t take their social or environmental impact into as much consideration as their bottom line.
In recent years, “environmental, social, …
Why should you be more productive? Because time is money? Not only that. I prefer time is family or time is go-home-sooner.
Being more productive in medicine isn’t working more hours or faster; it means working better.
Take breaks. Doctors rarely take breaks during their workday. Yet most employees do take two 15 minutes breaks each day. Do you feel like 15 minutes is too long? Take at least five minutes per …
Whenever asked, I hesitate to tell people what I do because when a young man says: “I’m a gynecologist,” he never seems to be taken quite so seriously. “No, really, I am” – “Oh.” Instead, I opt for the more charming “I deliver babies” line. Works every time.
And why is that? What about birth and babies triggers a sense of astonishment in people? Whatever it is, it seems to magically …
An excerpt from Man Overboard!: A Medical Lifeline for the Aging Male.
OK, you don’t consider yourself an exerciser. It’s just not you. You hate running. You don’t have the social temperament or the body image to show up in a gym. You’re not interested in doing a Turkey Trot, Reindeer …
I have an urgent request for the White House as it is garnering support for its national nutrition strategy that was unveiled at the September 28 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health: Tell the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stop putting students’ health at risk, and cut the red tape for them to get nondairy replacements for dairy milk in school lunches.
In the United States, …
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Four years ago, as chairman of the hospital ethics committee, I was asked to convene an emergency meeting brought by a distraught family as medical decisions had to be made for their ill loved one. The hospital, HMO lawyers, the family, three adult children, and their mother were at the meeting.
The father had arrived at the hospital unconscious and was admitted to the intensive care unit, where medical care was …
People who’ve done what it takes to earn a medical degree are typically pretty special. Most doctors spend reasonably, invest wisely and incubate a healthy nest egg: a recipe for a comfortable retirement. But some doctors are profligate and foolishly fall prey to hare-brained financial schemes. On the outside, they seem just like their financially savvy brethren.
But, neuroscientifically speaking, something is lurking under the surface of the silly-money cohort. Let’s …
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With COVID-19 vaccines now widely available for children six months and older, we join pediatricians and pharmacists across the country and urge parents to vaccinate their young children against COVID-19 as soon as possible.
Schools are open and more activities are moving indoors with the cooler weather, so now is the time to ensure your child’s vaccines are up to date. Vaccinated children are much less likely to be infected than …
My relationship with my cultural identity has always been a complicated one. As many children of immigrants can relate, I often felt disconnected from my parents’ country of origin in an attempt to assimilate to American life.
I was born in Manhattan, New York, and have always defined myself as a New Yorker first and an Iranian-American second. From a young age, I have watched from the periphery as Iran has …
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Current medical education promotes and encourages the textbook approach to learning, while interactive patient-centered learning rarely happens. Although rote learning plays a critical role in medical education, applying what is learned deepens the understanding and application of rote-learned materials. Undergraduate students can learn with supervision from instructors and patients, so they are prepared to practice medicine with excellence.
These trainees are learning the latest available techniques but lack the experiential wisdom …
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