Building individual health equity
Buying health insurance is a lot like renting an apartment. Finding the perfect place is hard, and the price is always higher than you expect. But if it is conveniently close to your employer and there are few other affordable options, you sign the lease and agree to all of the terms. Only after a few monthly payments do you realize electricity, heat, water, and snow removal are not included. …
Stop and smell the cadavers
Medical students are an odd bunch. At least in my day. Warning: The following may seem a little distasteful, violating the doctrine of proper decorum expected of medical professionals. I feel your anguish for those bent to the more sensitive side, but to sugar-coat a narrative only robs it of its essence.
I attended the Medical College of Wisconsin in the late 1980s, so what follows may not represent medical training. …
Beyond comfort: a treatment for OCD and a recipe for a better life
When I was a child, I recall my mother telling me that to live a successful life, you must do one thing every day that scares you. I remember not fully understanding this piece of advice’s magnitude or real significance, yet it still resonated. It’s funny, what stands out to us, what we remember, and why. Little did I know at the time that these words represented the very premise …
A C-section is not a defeat
“It was a cold night in October …”
I can now joke about that night with my husband and my best friend from OB/GYN residency. I had worked a Saturday 24-hour call shift, and as soon as I got home on Sunday morning, I began having symptoms that made me turn around and head right back to the labor and delivery unit …
Giving language to empathy: lessons from palliative care [PODCAST]
Technology disparities during cardiopulmonary cerebral resuscitation (CPCR)
When we talk about health disparities, we talk about socially disadvantaged populations. The disadvantages can be defined locally if we are talking about local communities, regionally if we are talking about regional populations, nationally if we are talking about national residents, and globally if we are talking about global humans. Local, regional, national, and global economic disparities may define corresponding health disparities.
One among economic disparities can be technology disparities during …
Leading an organizational culture change? Consider an apology first.
Leading an organization from a culture of bullying or blaming to a culture of safety is a daunting initiative. Unhealthy alignments are deeply embedded in toxic cultures, and informal power dynamics may influence how people behave. Instead of respectful communication where giving and receiving constructive feedback is ongoing, common behaviors include:
- gossip
- exclusion
- humiliation
- sabotage
- withholding
All of which perpetuate a cycle of broken trust and poor conduct.
While patients, the workforce, …
5 things I learned from Nepali health care
You must be thinking, what on Earth can the U.S. health care system learn from a poor, developing country like Nepal? Isn’t the U.S. known across the globe for its latest innovation and advanced procedures? Well, I was thinking the same thing. Until my seven-week trip this summer to rural Nepal. As a Nepali-American Emergency Medical Technician-Basic (EMT-B) studying medicine in the U.S., I learned more than I could imagine …
Want to improve telehealth? Ask people with disabilities. [PODCAST]
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“The tech industry needs to invest in developing platforms and devices with active, consistent, and frequent input from the disability community. This input must reflect a range of individuals with disabilities. A variety of identities exist beyond …
Falling in love with the heart
An excerpt from Saving Grace: What Patients Teach Their Doctors about Life, Death, and the Balance in Between.
In my third year at LSU Medical School, we dove headfirst into full-time patient care, taking required nine-week rotations on internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and general surgery. In the fourth year …
Medical malpractice is a lot like running a marathon
A medical malpractice process is a lot like running a marathon.
The analogy makes it easy to understand why physicians are emotionally unready to go through years of litigation and often find themselves struggling.
To successfully make it through the grueling 26.2 miles, a runner has to be well-prepared.
It’s common for runners to join a running group. Sometimes, engage a coach who can help to train smart.
Runners will spend months building up …
Giving medical advice with moral values is deeply personal and takes courage
Imagine delivering testimony to practicing emergency medicine for 30 years on the TEDx stage and my “Real Serious Illness Conversations with Parents” being condemned with this NOTE FROM TED: Please do not look to this talk as a substitute for health advice. This talk only reflects the speaker’s personal views and beliefs. It’s as if to say, “Beware of the doc”… who lets individuals decide how they’ll die …
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Meet the primary care doctor who’s happy with his job [PODCAST]
Coronavirus and the duty to treat
For the first time since graduation from medical school, stirred by the courage of my colleagues in the ICUs and emergency rooms during the COVID pandemic, I looked back at the Hippocratic oath to reassess its charge to physicians. My wife and I, both doctors, studied and trained for a long time, and we considered the years spent and the effort put forth to be a calculated sacrifice. But amidst …
Let’s meet in child’s pose and welcome the day
Anyone who has ever practiced yoga knows what that means. Child’s pose. Kneeling with toes untucked. Upper body hinged over the hips with arms outstretched and forehead resting against the mat. Breathing. In and out. In. And. Out. We are told it’s a recovery position, a safe place.
Whenever we are feeling overwhelmed with another position, or even if the position is not just clicking, we can find rest in something …
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Amazon, CVS, and Walmart are playing health care’s long game
In recent months, three of the nation’s largest retailers have stirred up a frenzy on Wall Street with a string of high-profile health care deals.
Amazon bought primary-care company One Medical in early August for $3.9 billion. That was a month before CVS spent $8 billion to acquire Signify Health and its network of 10,000 clinicians who make home visits (both virtually and IRL). A day later, Walmart inked a 10-year …
Habits of highly effective interns [PODCAST]
It’s not brain surgery: People with Parkinson’s need better care in the hospital
One year ago, I had brain surgery. The surgery was a success, and the hospital stay almost killed me.
I am one in a million; one of the 1 million people in the U.S. diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD), a degenerative neurological disorder that currently has no cure. It is the fastest-growing neurological disorder in the world, with the prevalence Read more…
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Overcoming the trauma of a fatherless childhood
An excerpt from Absent-Father Syndrome: Overcoming the Trauma of a Fatherless Childhood.
“I’ve sat face to face in front of many adults who were crying their eyes out,” says Rachel Norman, founder of A Mother Far from Home. “They needed healing tools and positive coping mechanisms. They had low self-worth, nonexistent …
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Past Week
-
Why removing fluoride from water is a public health disaster
-
When did we start treating our lives like trauma?
-
Mastering medical presentations: Elevating your impact
-
U.S. health care leadership must prepare for policy-driven change
-
Why what doctors say matters more than you think [PODCAST]
-
The hidden incentives driving frivolous malpractice lawsuits
-
Past 6 Months
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Why tracking cognitive load could save doctors and patients
-
What the world must learn from the life and death of Hind Rajab
-
The silent toll of ICE raids on U.S. patient care
-
Addressing the physician shortage: How AI can help, not replace
-
Why medical students are trading empathy for publications
-
Bureaucracy over care: How the U.S. health care system lost its way
-
Recent Posts
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U.S. health care leadership must prepare for policy-driven change
-
Why the pre-med path is pushing future doctors to the brink
-
Why the fear of being forgotten is stronger than the fear of death [PODCAST]
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How a rainy walk helped an oncologist rediscover joy and bravery
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How inspiration and family stories shape our most meaningful moments
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A day in the life of a WHO public health professional in Meghalaya, India
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