“Many patients, doctors, nurses, and health care administrators appear to have a seat on the blimp with little concept of how the game has evolved over the years and is being played now. They may have attended the game in the past, but they likely haven’t seen the action …
My mother died 18 years ago today. It has probably taken me that long to be able to talk about it because, as survivors of suicide, our culture teaches us to live in shame.
However, as I grow older, I have learned to let go of that shame. If you mention your experience with suicide to others, you will usually always find that they were affected by a similar loss in …
I tend to size people up pretty quickly. Adult ADHD? I can diagnose it in about two minutes. Borderline personality disorder? About one minute. Bad actors on the Dr. Phil show? About 30 seconds (with the benefit of Dr. Phil’s preamble). I can’t help it. I attribute my habit of analyzing people to my training and practice in psychiatry. After a 40-year career in medicine, I can no longer delineate …
I did not realize I was a perfectionist. I was far from perfect. It was not until I listened to a master class on perfectionism from a physician coach that I had my “aha moment.” I am now working extremely hard on training my brain to be an imperfectionist. To …
An excerpt from Love Your Child More Than You Hate Your Ex: What Every Divorced Parent Needs to Know.
As an experienced clinical child psychologist, I believe the ultimate goal of any parent is to rear an independent, responsible child. While at first glance this may appear obvious yet if we observe most parents in action on a day-to-day basis, it …
Working day after day, year after year, in a busy high acuity ICU, we all have become a “second family.”
The public doesn’t hear much about respiratory therapists, especially during this COVID nightmare. But they have been the unsung heroes.
So who are the respiratory therapists, and what do they do?
Respiratory therapists are specialized health care professionals trained in critical care and cardio-pulmonary medicine. They work therapeutically with people suffering from acute …
My introduction to health insurance companies was very abrupt and simple.
I received my medical training in the U.S. Navy and served three years after that. Then, I was finally discharged. I had treated thousands of patients as a Navy doctor, but I had never charged one, nor did I even know how to charge for services.
My partner in the civilian practice I joined made the transition easy: “Sign this contract …
“We have observed that delays in screenings and intervention for patients with certain common chronic conditions can contribute to claims. Now, clinicians have the opportunity to identify patients whose conditions merit priority contact, such as those with cardiac conditions, those on blood pressure medication, or those with diabetes, and …
One recent afternoon in the GI endoscopy suite (not my favorite place to work, but that’s a topic for another day), I walked up to the bedside of my next patient and introduced myself as I always do.
“Hi,” I said, holding up my name badge for the patient and his wife to see. “I’m Dr. Sibert. I’m with the anesthesiology department and I’ll be looking after you today.”
The patient was …
Norman Grant was a new patient. He had chronic back pain, not helped by surgery or a dozen injections after that. It all started with an industrial accident in 2001. He had settled his case and was on chronic OxyContin, which far from kept him functional. But as of January 1, his insurance was no longer covering that drug. He only had two weeks left of it.
He told me he …
When I was young, my father told me that baseball is a metaphor for life. As a lifelong fan, I’ve found professional inspiration and valuable lessons in this game, time after time after time.
This year was no different. Throughout the 2021 MLB playoffs, and amid an exciting World Series between the Houston …
“The diagnosis is well-established. A cure is within our reach, and the wisest among our practitioners of the healing arts are offering valuable counsel. When the U.S. government and science, in its most principled form, work together, insulated from a culture of insidious and invidious profiteering, they can put a …
As resident physicians, many of us are overworked, underpaid, and trying our best to make it through. While this time has its ups and downs, we can’t lose sight of the bigger picture. One of the best things we can do during residency is laying the foundation for the life and career we desire. This means doing a few things during our time in training to set ourselves up well …
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A nurse innovator is a nurse who specializes in bringing forth positive change in health care quality and equity by addressing the unmet needs of a target population through new products, processes, and services. Innovators have existed throughout the history of nursing which dates to the 19th century. Yet, the formalization of a ‘nurse innovator’ role has only begun to emerge within health care organizations across the U.S. over the …
“After much searching, I was fortunate to find a fellowship that though inexperienced in LGBTQ health recognized an opportunity. Faculty and mentors worked from a growth mindset rooted in finding what I needed to succeed rather than what they knew they had to offer at that moment. With their and …
It was as if my four-day-old daughter’s condition was not critical. It was as if I was not a clinician who could confidently assess and identify seizure episodes. It was as if there were no monitors blatantly showing critically low oxygen levels.
Nine long hours and still no response. I felt like I was begging for eternity. I had repeatedly approached the nurses’ station to get their attention and assess my …
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What can we learn as we experience turmoil, change, or as we grieve a loss? Is there something we can focus on to help us go through difficult times in our lives? This can be a minor occurrence in our life, or it can be what we have all lived through collectively during a global pandemic.
What can help us see what is beyond what we are experiencing now and let …
“We physicians must come to terms with the trauma caused by the financial insecurity built into our training and the ripple effect it has even after we finish training, both as a way to repair ourselves individually and as a way to assure that our profession survives.
The cost of medical …
Research shows that early intervention in mental health conditions is critical for achieving better outcomes. Left unaddressed, conditions tend to progress. The depression will worsen. The anxiety will escalate. The disorder can intensify to the point where a child or teen can’t function, won’t get out of bed, may start self-medicating – and the list goes on.
Even though it could change the trajectory of an adolescents’ mental health condition, providers …
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March 11, 2020, my nightmare began.
“Ready to switch?” asks my American Sign Language interpreter during an all-day virtual conference. Switching from speaker view to gallery view, I search for a different speaker’s interpreter among numerous attendees, pin her video, and switch back to speaker view. This interpreter updates me on what I missed during the transition.
I do this every half hour throughout the conference, peering through my reading glasses while …
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