“He knew it was his time a month ago. We were sitting at the kitchen table, and he told me he couldn’t feel half his face. He kept tapping the left side and saying he couldn’t feel anything. I knew he had a stroke because my daughter had one. He was stubborn, didn’t want to go to the doctor.”
One week ago, I saw Mr. Samson for the first time in …
Death is what gives life meaning
Boom! Crash! Ow!
That was the feeling of many pediatricians nationwide as we were hit in the face with the bomb of the COVID pandemic and all of the challenges it would bring, notably in the demands for mental health care. This skyrocketing demand led to the declaration of a state of emergency by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2021 and a call for pediatricians to do more to address …
How pediatricians can get involved with behavioral health
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“There are two valuable reasons why all physicians, especially medical students, should obtain or demand from their medical school academic business education.
About 98 percent of physicians and medical students have never had an academic business education. About …
Why physicians require business skills [PODCAST]
The six to ten percent of women in the U.S. who are living with endometriosis have to deal with not only the pain and complications the disease causes, but often also with exceptionally long delays before receiving a diagnosis—an average of 8.5 years from first seeking care to diagnosis. One study revealed that more than 75 percent of the women who participated in the study were first …
Endometriosis is often misdiagnosed. How to get the right diagnosis.
Maternal health has been a trending topic in the news due to increased maternal mortality rates due to challenges in accessing care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling overturning Roe v. Wade is deepening concerns surrounding this issue. The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate of undeveloped countries, with an alarming 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births. My wife, Parissa, could have been part …
Care coordination for obstetrics teams is crucial
“By God’s grace, Dr. Sal!”
“Yes, T.J.! What’s the good news?”
“Guess what Mr. Thompson’s potassium is now?”
“3.1 …”
“Wrong! 4.1!”
We high-fived each other immediately and breathed a huge sigh of relief. For six days straight, we’ve been giving Mr. T potassium through an IV and by mouth with little to no change in his potassium level.
He came to the hospital after being found passed out in his home. Very low initial blood …
A friendly battle with a patient’s potassium
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“People developing anaphylaxis will not always have five extra minutes to spare. I do appreciate that auto-injectors are expensive, but it is not at all expensive to have an ampule or vial of epinephrine on board, which …
A nut allergy nightmare at 35,000 feet [PODCAST]
I am a physician.
We are always taught to see our patients as more than their state of illness or diagnosis. “Speak to the patient,” “listen,” “look them in the eye,” “do not put one foot out the door,” the list of do’s and don’ts, while self-explanatory, is long. A good doctor is considered one who is able to view the person behind the symptoms and offer a shoulder, not just …
A patient gave this physician her humanity back
An excerpt from Not A Real Enemy: The True Story of a Hungarian Jewish Man’s Fight for Freedom.
The first signs that something terrible had happened were the lights. The hospital was brightly lit through every corridor. In communist Hungary, electricity was yet another resource one learned to do without. Lights …
The true story of a Hungarian Jewish man’s fight for freedom
Amazon recently announced plans to shut down Amazon Care, an in-home and virtual health care service.
The reasons cited were attributed to a significant overlap of services with the One Medical chain of clinics, which Amazon purchased in July of this year for 3.9 billion, as well as Amazon Care not being a complete enough offering for large enterprise customers for which it was targeting.
This is the third health …
The recent closing of Amazon Care shows the magnitude of the challenge in changing health care
This article is sponsored by the Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning, an independently owned and operated full-service medical education company that has been developing certified health care education for nearly twenty years.
Visit the tools and a CME quality improvement activity at preventhypotoolkit.org. …
Severe hypoglycemia: Are your at-risk patients prepared?
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“The most important lesson when negotiating contracts is picking your battles and coming at them with optimism and positivity. Yes, you can and should be excited about this new opportunity, but you need to receive what’s fair …
Negotiating employment contracts from a place of strength [PODCAST]
With so much disconnect in our world right now, it can be a challenge for some to find ways to stay connected to meaningful things, people, places, and events. I won’t belabor my own list of disconnectedness, but I imagine many of your lists are much longer than you are accustomed to.
A recent medical experience motivated me to write about this …
Use connectivity to rise above our individual and collective challenges
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 is an ambitious piece of legislation that was signed into law on August 16 of this year. This was a revised, negotiated version of the Build Back Better Plan that failed to pass in December 2021. Like many pieces of legislation, this is a complicated bill, 730 pages in length, with a very broad scope. Although controversial, the costs of this bill will …
The Inflation Reduction Act: Can it build back medicine better and reduce climate change?
This piece started out focusing on the impact of colds on our lives, particularly if COVID is now “just a cold.”
But now it’s personal.
My husband and I escaped COVID until now by being very careful until we got vaccinated. Once vaccinated, we focused on living our lives safely – no eating at indoor restaurants (there are plenty of outdoor venues to choose from), masking indoors and testing when gathering with …
The impact of a single COVID infection
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“The worry and anticipation of getting sued are heightened more than ever in the wake of the pandemic. It is in all physicians’ minds. I recently did a quick poll in some of my physician groups on …
What to do if you’re involved in a medical malpractice lawsuit [PODCAST]
Almost 20 percent of America’s population lives in rural areas of the country, where accessing health care facilities and services can be challenging. The patient-to-primary care physician ratio in rural areas is only 39.8 physicians per 100,000 residents, compared to 53.3 physicians in urban areas.
Rural hospitals work diligently to meet the health needs of the populations they serve, but they have long struggled with staffing shortages, inconsistent patient volumes, …
Improving access to care in rural America: Keeping rural hospitals in the game
I am an anesthesiologist, a physician with a specialization in anesthesia. I chose this profession, with its difficulties and its rewards. I knew there would be sacrifices and I have gladly made them. I didn’t expect this, yet here I am, doing what has to be done, if for no other reason than it is what I do.
I want to share with you something I wrote in the summer of …
“How is it being back?” Truthfully, it’s much harder than before.
Congratulations! You made it through residency. On to the next stage of your emergency medicine career – attending-hood (and for some fellowship)!
Here are ten tips we learned during our first year as attendings at an academic emergency medicine department.
1. Efficiency comes with time. Start off making sure you are methodical. Unlike residency, you will no longer have an attending re-ordering hemolyzed labs or ensuring a negative HCG prior to obtaining …
10 tips for smoothing the transition from resident to academic emergency medicine attending
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“Since President Nixon declared war on cancer in 1971, and despite some great victories and many losses, there continues to be a never-ending battle in this long-fought war that seems never-ending. The convergence of great intellect and …
Antibodies are the future of cancer treatment [PODCAST]
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