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“Nowadays, even scientific fact has been politicized. Even though many of us may wish to stay out of politics and stick to our “nobler” lane of medicine, the reality is even your clinical practice could be considered …
Activism is a part of medicine and we cannot remain neutral [PODCAST]
For years, residents have tried valiantly to extract themselves from the hospital by physically moving out of the premises or reducing duty hours. Now it may be time to return.
Rents are rising, and in the major metropolitan areas where most residencies exist, this is being felt acutely. Salaries are generally static, but rents have risen about 7.4 percent compared to last year. Doctors come into residency with enormous …
It’s time to retake the call room
Did you assume that your life would be magically perfect once you finished training?
I know I did.
I fully believed that once I graduated from my fellowship and became an attending, everything in my life would just fall right into place. Somehow my finances would be simple, my marriage would be great, I would be an amazing mother with well-behaved children, and things would be easy.
Wrong.
So many of us have this …
Want to stop going through the motions and actually have the life you dreamed of? Try this.
Burnout. We define, measure, and talk about it endlessly but do little to fix it. Unchecked, it can lead to medical mistakes, career dissatisfaction, early retirement, provider suicide, and excess costs. With the recent pandemic, the public has become more aware of it, but action to fix it is still lagging.
Feeling underappreciated, feeling one’s work is meaningless, feeling powerless to make changes, and feelings of moral injury are but a …
No wonder doctors feel like hamsters running on an exercise wheel to nowhere
As my patient’s face slowly became visible on the computer screen, I smiled and waved to her. She waved back with vigor.
She was a Cuban housekeeper who arrived in Miami during the Mariel boatlift in 1980. Now in her mid-60s, she had recently been diagnosed with leukemia and endured a two-month hospitalization during which her bone marrow grudgingly entered a remission, following an onslaught of chemotherapy. She was now back …
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“With schools closed, children spent hours upon hours sitting in front of a screen for instruction and homework. Non-academic screen time increased as well, with parents needing to work from home and thus relying more on screens …
Reversing the impact of the pandemic on childhood obesity [PODCAST]
An excerpt from Tornado of Life: A Doctor’s Journey Through Constraints and Creativity in the ER. Reprinted with permission from The MIT Press. Copyright 2022.
The appendix is a body part with an image problem. Derived from the Latin word for “hanging on,” the term can mean a bodily outgrowth or …
The appendix: an ancient organ for the modern age
International medical school graduates (IMGs) play an integral role in the health care system of the United States and constitute approximately one-quarter of the physician workforce. In 2022, fewer IMGs registered for Match than in 2021, with a match rate of 58.1 percent. The transition to USMLE Step 1 pass/fail, elimination of Step 2 Clinical Science, and implementation of secondary application will likely impact IMGs in their 2023 Match. Here …
9 ways international medical graduates can boost their residency match outcomes
“Well, you may think you want to be a surgeon, now that you’re young and think you can do it all, but that will change — once children are in the picture. You’ll see how hard it is to leave them and wish you could be with them all the time.”
As a young female medical student, I seriously considered the physician’s words. I imagined what it would be like to …
Just as medicine is rooted in relationships, so too is good advising
A tall, thin, down-glancing man slumped in a chair in the corner of the exam room.
His gray-haired wife sat primly next to him.
They were here with their adult wheelchair-bound daughter.
For the past two decades, the daughter had been under their constant care at home.
A chronic progressive illness had wreaked havoc on this young woman’s body.
Her adult life had been held prisoner by an insidious neurologic disorder.
She was having a problem …
Hope, with a ribbon of uncertainty curling gently around it
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“‘Doctor, it’s taken so long to get this appointment with you!’ This is the opening line of so many medical visits, and I find myself constantly apologizing to my patients on behalf of our system. After the …
Getting an appointment with primary care is the Achilles’ heel of medicine [PODCAST]
An excerpt from Healthcare Upside Down: A Critical Examination of Policy and Practice.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was …
American health care: the best of times and the worst of times
One conundrum patients face is the dichotomy of trusting our doctors whilst deep diving in web searches and seeking additional opinions. Another is when our findings and experiences do not align with our doctors or established practices and guidelines.
How would you react in the first consultation with a new patient who presented as I did: with a radiation oncologist in Houston, outcome data on three curative attempts, a graph of …
Urging patience with patient self-advocacy
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An excerpt from Parent Like a Pediatrician: All of the Facts, None of the Fear.
The internet broke parenting. In the “good old days,” parents followed a few basic pediatrician-approved rules—send your kid to school, give them healthy food, say “I love you”—and felt confident that they were raising their children …
The internet broke parenting. This pediatrician can fix it.
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
There are some moments in life that, when you look back years later, you see a pivot. The fork in the road you didn’t recognize at the time, that looking back, changed the trajectory of your life.
One of those moments in my life …
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“It is uncomfortable to be publically vulnerable with my story. I wish the statistics and research were enough to change the field of medicine for patients and physicians. I want people to care about the experience of …
A doctor for LGBTQ+ health needs [PODCAST]
“Where does it hurt?”
As a child, I can remember this ubiquitous question being frequently asked of me. Having grown up on a farm, there was always some trouble for me to get into. A common hazard was my older sister’s 26-inch bicycle, which had no training wheels.
At age 5, if I was to be a “big kid,” I had to master the art of riding the “big” bike on our …
As we get older and the world changes, it’s not always an easy task to say “where”
I still get chills thinking about the moment I decided to go to medical school. I was bored in my college physiology class, watching the minute hand on the round lecture hall clock.
There were just a few minutes remaining in the class, and students were starting to pack up. The professor, Dr. Adams, said, “I want to talk about hemorrhage before you go.” His voice was getting lost in the …
When medicine surrenders to the body
If we are going to take on the challenge of improving communication and related behavior, a.k.a. “soft” skills among health care professionals, we should be realistic. As nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals, we are keenly aware of how difficult changing behavior can be. We see it daily in our patients’ efforts regarding healthy choices and lifestyles. For example, it can be hard to lose weight, exercise regularly, or …
Improving communication requires tough soft skill development
I knew I wanted to be a doctor when I was seven years old. I excelled in school, attended a good college, scored well on the MCAT, and was accepted into medical school just as I always knew I would be. It was only as I progressed in my career as a physician that I realized that being a white, middle-class individual had given me an advantage—I had access that …
Who gets to go to medical school?
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