5 ways that health IT can improve health equity

Tech
March 23, 2022

On March 10, I had the distinct privilege of presenting to the ONC Health IT Advisory Committee at their meeting titled “Health Equity by Design.” The presentation highlighted five areas of focus for health IT in reducing health disparities: health equity data collection, actionable analysis of the data, integration of health care and social service providers, the special role that health information exchanges (HIEs) can play, and access to health …

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The invisibility of mental illness

Conditions
March 23, 2022

While the mental illness patient is afflicted by very real and painful feelings, these feelings are internal and not visible to others. The indications of the condition then, whether those of depression, anxiety, or even hallucinations, can be said to be invisible to observers — family, doctor, etc. — in fact, to everyone other than that individual sufferer of mental illness.

A constellation of signs and symptoms is often used to …

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To my patient who is going to lose her hair from chemotherapy [PODCAST]

Podcast
March 22, 2022
YouTube video

“I understand that the biggest fear you have about going through chemotherapy is losing your hair. I just want to tell you. You will be fine. Trust me.

I know it’s barbaric. Why don’t we have medicines to treat cancer that will not make you lose your hair in this …

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A primary care physician’s gut feelings

Physician
March 22, 2022

To spend an entire college year (two semesters) studying epistemology seemed like a colossal waste of time when I was 19. We had no choice; we had to take it, and I got a pretty good mark, as I recall. It took a half year to find out what it was about, but it seemed to concern itself with how we obtain knowledge. There is inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning …

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Celebrating my unique path in life and medicine: a delivery room diagnosis of Down syndrome

Physician
March 22, 2022

January 24, 2014, was a typical day for me, spent hurrying up and down the halls outside the operating rooms at the hospital where I was an attending anesthesiologist. I often “ran the board” or was the charge person, and I enjoyed being the facilitator. Each operation was written on a magnetic strip and we moved them around like pieces of a puzzle to get the surgeries done efficiently. I …

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We have overwhelmingly lost touch with the human aspect of medicine

Physician
March 22, 2022

The medical establishment has made wonderful strides in destigmatizing psychiatric disorders. However, we have helped to create a devastating stigmatization of emotional distress. Somehow, as it has become acceptable to suffer from a psychiatric illness, it has become increasingly unacceptable to suffer from emotional distress and the current medical practice has nurtured this change.

We have simply and overwhelmingly lost touch with the human aspect of medicine. When someone is in …

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Changing how we think about “difficult” patients [PODCAST]

Podcast
March 21, 2022
YouTube video

“Our patients go through some very predictable fears and responses to illness and injury. In turn, medical students and residents also think and respond with some thought distortions and misunderstandings about their patients and themselves. Armed with awareness and familiarity with the typical patterns, we learn more about what …

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The myth of physician resistance

Tech
March 21, 2022

I’m an RN and clinical informaticist. When I was studying health care informatics, I learned about physician resistance. The idea is that physicians are uniquely resistant to EHRs and health care information technology (HIT) apps. If only they went to more training or spent more of their limited time customizing their preferences, they would get the benefits of the EHR. For years, I believed this to be true.

Yet, I had …

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How this physician’s self-care awakening helped her lose weight and take control of her health

Physician
March 21, 2022

For many of us, the term self-care is synonymous with self-indulgence. I used to think so too. Our thoughts immediately race towards behavior requiring us to take time away from our loved ones or shortchange them of our responsibilities.

As a child, I looked to my parents as prime role models. They were first-generation immigrants from Iran who were trying to uphold their …

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True happiness and fulfillment come in servitude of others

Physician
March 21, 2022

Have you ever really appreciated the silence? The true silence that transports you to the root of it all. Our lives are a perpetual hamster wheel, chasing aspirations with underlying motivations that I often don’t completely understand. Good intentions and acts of kindness, seemingly altruistic, have hidden motivations of affirmation or appreciation. Why do you do what you do? It seems so obvious on the surface, but like an onion …

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Family medicine and the fight for the soul of health care [PODCAST]

Podcast
March 20, 2022
YouTube video

“Overall, the health system in the United States is still not tilting its axes in favor of either primary care or family doctor. What is worse, family doctors as a collective are more balkanized and less cohesive than ever. There is a sense among those in the field that …

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Strategies to help women advocate for themselves and avoid misdiagnosis

Conditions
March 20, 2022

While everyone faces some risk of experiencing a delayed diagnosis or misdiagnosis, some studies have found that the problem is more common for women. Women are 50 percent more likely than men to receive an incorrect diagnosis when they’re having a heart attack and nearly 30 percent more likely to receive an incorrect diagnosis for stroke. They are also diagnosed with cancer more than two years later …

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Raising the white flag isn’t about surrendering to a broken system

Physician
March 20, 2022

So here I am. I just finished updating my CV so I can apply for associate professor this fall.

And I hadn’t touched it since last year. It needed a lot of work.

I look at this, and I think, “Wow.”

And then I also think: What about all the “stuff” that’s not on there?

The difficult pregnancies.

My son’s struggles his first 36 months of life.

My husband’s year-long deployment as a new mother of …

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The value of hope

Physician
March 20, 2022

We all need hope. It is powerful and its absence is devastating. Hope allows us to move forward and to dream. Over decades of practice, I have found it to be the most powerful medication I can give a patient.

When we dispense hope, we must be as honest as we are with any treatment. False hope must be vigorously avoided. It is lying. In giving false hope, we might deprive …

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Kids are not OK: Health care is failing them [PODCAST]

Podcast
March 19, 2022
YouTube video

“Our children are not OK. Our pediatricians are not OK. Please, let us not further ignore and jeopardize the future health of our society. Pediatrics needs a transformational change to direct primary care and other models that transition from transactional care to relational care. Encourage your employer to embrace …

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How an AI bot transformed my EHR experience

Tech
March 19, 2022

What is it about the documentation of patient encounters that is so aggravating? I was ecstatic to be part of the generation that entered the computer age in medicine. The first day I opened a chart on a pull-down menu within a pixelated screen I felt like I was ushering in the future. We would be able to mine charts for clinical gold!

As a clinician, I value the …

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Why it’s time to use our voices

Conditions
March 19, 2022

Until recently, I have remained relatively silent in the realm of eating disorder advocacy and silenced by the exhaustion of my own lived experience with an eating disorder. However, my silence further contributed to the pain. So now, I speak. And as I speak, I will reflect on the issues that led to my former silence and why we must use our voices.

The need for this work was validated during …

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Managing expectations during COVID-19 [PODCAST]

Podcast
March 18, 2022
YouTube video

“I had sent an email to some key people in my organization about managing patients’ expectations and how that needed to be addressed differently on an organizational level. The truth of the matter is that I am powerless to change the way the system handles a lot of things. The …

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Looking back on 2 years of uncertainty, adversity and more than a few silver linings

Physician
March 18, 2022

Since the beginning of COVID-19, we have recognized the truth of philosopher George Santayana’s oft-quoted 1905 writing — “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” — and looked for lessons from the 1918 Spanish flu, the deadliest pandemic of the 20th century. Much was different, yet so much the same. There was no testing, treatments, or ability to prevent the virus then beyond shutdowns, masking, distancing, …

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When the government comes for your trans kid 

Physician
March 18, 2022

Even before I turned 16, I knew I liked girls. I also knew I liked boys. I didn’t understand it. Why was I drawn to women? During that period of my life (between 11 and 16 years of age), I was also in a boarding school. An all-girl boarding school, for that matter. It was torture. It went against everything I knew to be “right.”

That was the first time that …

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