Life continues in medical school and residency. Engagements, marriages, and divorces. Becoming a parent to a child. Having a dog or cat. Love and loss. Life and death. Then there is the uniqueness and privilege of being in medical training combined with great responsibilities and pressures that set the stage for some of the highest of highs and lowest of lows.
Prior to beginning medical school, I was told by a …
“Two issues drive teen substance use: drug availability and perception of risk.
Availability: Today’s teens know that obtaining substances is far too easy. For example, 70 percent of high school seniors say marijuana is either “fairly easy” or “very easy” to obtain. Seventy-seven percent say getting their hands on alcohol is …
So many mixed emotions as I scrolled the multiple acknowledgments on social media this recent Doctors’ Day. Although it is nice to be recognized, are we just supposed to forget the recent hostility and disrespect? Can we ever really thank those on the frontlines who risked their lives during the pandemic? The recognition comes too late for the many doctors and trainees who did not survive. How do we honor …
Malpractice claims and disciplinary actions are unfortunate realities for too many physicians. A 2016 survey of physicians revealed that 34 percent of them had been sued, and 16.8 percent had been sued more than once. By the time a doctor is 54 years old, there is almost a 50 percent chance that they will have been sued. Disciplinary actions are far less common, but a comprehensive review …
Thousands of young doctors just learned where they’ll be spending the next few years of their lives in residency.
A significant number of them will be U.S. citizens who completed medical school abroad. This corps of internationally educated doctors has become increasingly important to the U.S. health care system — and is tackling a disproportionate share of America’s biggest health care challenges.
The United States desperately needs doctors. According to the Association …
“It was probably in early 1803, as Jenner’s fame swelled and more doctors were adopting vaccination, when Bell met a farmer with a curious story. The farmer’s name was Benjamin Jesty, from the Downshay farm in a nearby village. Seeing the growing practice of vaccination, Jesty was eager to …
This article is sponsored by Masterworks, the art investment platform.
Physicians face a dilemma.
U.S. physicians make $237,000 a year on average. That’s 4x more than most Americans. Very impressive if you ask me. But despite high earners, they still rarely achieve early retirement.
In fact, physicians usually retire …
In the wake of a harrowing year, I’m left wondering, is a career in emergency medicine worth it? Like so many of my colleagues, I suffered personal tragedies during the pandemic that exacerbated the incredible stress at work.
My brother died in March of 2021, three weeks after receiving a diagnosis of metastatic colon cancer, and tragically, just six months later, my mother also died unexpectedly.
I have no doubt that emergency …
Doctors often find the electronic health record (EHR) time-consuming and annoying. However, quantitative estimates of physicians’ time on EHR tasks are sparse and not collated. We assembled evidence on hours dedicated to the EHR each day by physicians. The result is impressive – 4.5 hours.
A little background: EHR systems started in the late 1960s. The federal government implemented VistA in the 1970s in the Department of Veteran …
Happy Doctor’s Day.
Every year, eager young pre-med students apply for medical school. When they don’t make it in and are quite determined, they apply to schools on a few Caribbean islands. They teach the same material, the same practical skills, the same tests are given and must be passed. Except these students arrive on an island far from home. Far from family and friends. Often, they must leave their spouses …
“I suspect that some of the nearly 20 percent of physicians who have quit their jobs during this pandemic needed to feel this relief, too. They needed to feel the relief of having no plan. No ‘if this, then that.’ They needed to just exist in the now. Because who …
Emily Watters is a physician and discusses trauma in health care workers, in comic form. (Click to enlarge.)
Health equity is vital for a harmonious society with the potential to prosper. The root causes can be divided into two themes: structural inequity and social determinants of health. The root causes contributing to health inequity and disastrous health outcomes in specific communities should be analyzed. It is essential to understand the reasons to promote equal and effective interventions to save people’s lives. This is important because by saving a …
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Few individuals are called upon to be heroes like Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy who, in choosing to stay and fight a massive, invading army, faces a real possibility of imprisonment and death. This is true courage.
Within the medical profession, there are also wars to be fought that require true courage. One thinks of the late Dr. Paul Farmer, who worked tirelessly throughout his career to bring high-quality health care to …
“Reducing the occurrence of comorbid mental and physical disorders will require an integrated model combining medical and behavioral health care services. The window of opportunity is open for health insurers and employers to invest in employee assistance programs and telehealth platforms and build on a newfound acceptance of mental health …
This month marks the 12th anniversary of Obamacare’s passing. Was it perfect? No. It was meant to be a starting block to cover a widening gap in the nation’s health equity. It became less effective because of direct attacks by politicians who then used the failures to point a finger back at President Obama for nothing other than party-line politics. The Affordable …
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I had known AR for eight days before she passed away.
AR’s medical record was littered with phrases all too familiar in the field of medicine: she had “poor insight into the severity of her disease” and was “insisting on all resuscitation measures despite poor prognosis.” But quite frankly, I could not blame her. She had been diagnosed with metastatic gastric cancer, bilateral Kruckenberg tumors and additional metastases throughout her abdominal …
Two new treatments have emerged for sickle cell disease. One curative treatment is a bone marrow transplant, and the second treatment is a gene-based therapy undergoing clinical trials. While this is much-welcomed news for patients battling the disease, the medical profession still needs to address sickle cell disease’s socioeconomic and racial health care inequities.
Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease that alters and lowers red blood …
“If we want a more effective health care system, it needs to be re-engineered to revolve around the true center of gravity – the patient. We must involve patients early and often in the design of health policy, health technology, and health care ecosystems. We must reinvent health care payment …
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FDA and Health Canada recently approved Paxlovid as an oral treatment option for mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk of progression to severe COVID-19. It is a combination drug containing nirmatrelvir/ritonavir. Nirmatrelvir works by binding to SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease to ultimately stop viral replication. Ritonavir does not have any antiviral activity against COVID-19 but increases concentrations of nirmatrelvir by decreasing its metabolism by CYP3A4 enzyme. Ritonavir is …
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