March was Endometriosis Awareness Month, and my journey with the disease involved a medical error. The apology I received restored trust in my care, a pivotal moment I hope can occur between more patients and physicians.
Medical error disclosure to patients, where a medical professional reports and explains a medical mistake to a patient, is encouraged by the Joint Commission …
As a therapist and physician spouse who works with physicians and physician couples, I’ve seen the excitement and difficulty of exiting medical training and becoming an attending. The shift is a celebratory culmination of the physician’s hard work and a jarring transition with its unique challenges. Here are six things a new attending can do to recover from their residency experience and build a thriving next chapter.
1. Process …
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Join us with guest Kimberly Jackson-Bekemeier, a family physician with a personal story of managing Type 1 diabetes amidst the pandemic. Kimberly shares her journey of struggling with the diagnosis, feeling lost and alone, until she discovered …
The purpose of the serious illness conversation is to offer patients a clear choice between treating and not treating an incurable disease like liver cancer. The goal is to give the person permission to alleviate pain and suffering. The individual might decide to be treated as a patient or honored as a person if given this option near the end of life.
A non-serious illness conversation ends with the patient wishing …
As a cancer physician, the amount of data I obtain on my patients is ever-increasing, along with options for cancer therapies. This is, as the saying goes, a good problem to have, but the amount of data management oncologists must do after hours (because there isn’t enough time in the clinic day) to keep up with the deluge of input contributes to burnout.
Many things keep oncologists up at night, …
For the last century, no medical school in the U.S. has ever offered or provided business education to any medical students. Check it out yourself. Then consider, that over 95 percent of graduating physicians are business ignorant, after never being informed while in medical school about the substantial value that a business education provides to any physician, especially those in private medical practice. Why would that be?
That’s around 22,000 medical …
My hands were wet with warm soapy water as I washed the dinner pots and dishes. My mind wondered into autopilot, as it tends to do when I am doing my chores. I find washing dishes so mundane, so simple, so irritatingly boring. I begin the process grudgingly. After a few minutes, my thoughts start to change. I notice a certain peace and tranquility that comes from the process of …
Well, it finally happened.
To me.
A physician.
I became an MD 30 years ago, long before the EMR existed. This was also well before Dr. Google appeared on the scene. A time when medical records existed only on paper.
I remember getting frustrated when I had to see a patient without their paper chart, as it was still in another physician’s office. I was griped about not being able to find a particular …
At one point, many of us will ask the questions, “Am I going to die? Am I safe? Who can I count on? It could be as you face your mortality or find yourself in a dangerous situation. Or, as it has been for many frontline health care professionals while facing a job-related risk like contracting COVID-19. Medical professionals are not the only ones who have experienced high levels of …
A strong organizational culture is considered the secret sauce of successful organizations. But the Latin term, “Abyssus Abyssum Invocat” (“One Hell Calls Forth Another”), explains perfectly why it is increasingly difficult to maintain optimized organizational cultures in health care organizations.
Hell #1: Pre-pandemic, health systems and their workers in both Canada and the United States were highly stressed. The reasons were different; the end-consequences the same. And then, as predicted, this …
“FYI, your patient died.”
This message from another physician sat in my Epic inbox. Feelings of disappointment and sadness surfaced as I prepared to start my overnight shift in the emergency department. The death of a child simplified to an Epic chat message felt eerily impersonal and distant.
Months prior to receiving this message, I had another traumatic patient experience in the same emergency department. I will never forget the feeling …
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An excerpt from From Whispers to Shouts: The Ways We Talk About Cancer.
“Walt, is that you?” Skyler asks her husband in the final scene of the Breaking Bad pilot. They’re in bed, she’s pregnant, and he’s come toward her in a new way. He’s changed, and she doesn’t yet know …
In recent years, the health care industry has undergone a significant transformation, and one of the main drivers behind this change is artificial intelligence (AI). As the adoption of AI continues to accelerate, it is becoming a topic that cannot be ignored. However, despite its potential to revolutionize health care, it remains the elephant in the board room – a topic often …
“I feel tired,” said Mr. T. Mr. T was a 72-year-old man who came to our ED. For the last three days, he had been passing reddish urine. Two weeks before this, he had a bout of bronchitis that did not require hospitalization, just ciprofloxacin. He had made a full recovery. The emergency department ordered many tests, among which was a comprehensive metabolic panel and a complete blood count. It …
For several years, I fixated on what was wrong with me rather than seeing what was right with me when I developed symptoms of severe depression.
If you’re struggling, too, you’re not broken, either. What is your brain telling you?
While I am not a mental health professional and strongly advocate for people to get the support they need, as I have done throughout my journey, I share this reflection as a …
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In this episode, psychiatrist Maryna Mammoliti discusses the importance of collaborating with occupational therapists. Occupational therapists are health care professionals who can help assess and accommodate patients’ daily activities, including work and home life. Maryna shares her …
The allopathic medical system has failed me – as a patient, mother, and physician. Like many physician peers, I entered the health care world with grand visions of healing others. I quickly learned during my clinical rotations in medical school that healing (in the truest sense of the word) was less likely but that helping was still possible. So I rolled up my sleeves and entered pediatric residency, where I …
The rise of the digital age brought with it various breakthroughs that have fundamentally changed the way we live and interact with technology. Among these breakthroughs are Napster and ChatGPT, two innovative technologies that potentially transform industries. Napster revolutionized the music industry in the early 2000s, and ChatGPT, an advanced AI language model, is poised to create a similar impact across multiple …
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