This article is sponsored by the Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning. Visit the CME activity and Clinical Inertia Assessment Tool. This activity is supported by an educational grant from Lilly.
It’s been over …
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Recognizing accomplishments and a ticket to residency: That was Match Day. But now, at the doorstep of the next challenge, you’d better take a hard look at your most important personal relationship.
That is, if you want to keep your good thing together. Because if you think residency is going to be the start of easy, no-maintenance times for you and your partner, maybe you need to go back to medical …
Maybe we need to educate upper management — those multi-million-dollar hospitals with multi-million dollars per year salaried CEOs and board members with their financial perks — that health care professionals and nurses during “Health Care Worker/Nurse Week” in May of each year are no longer in the second grade.
Maybe we need to remind “them” that we are college-educated health care professionals with degrees, like ADNs, BSN, MSNs, RNs, LPNs, educators, …
Health care worker appreciation: When the thought doesn’t count
A quarter of a million dollars — that’s the amount of debt the average medical student in the United States owes after completing medical school. After all the late nights studying, the endless exams and selfless sacrifice, it’s human nature to expect a historically stable career as the reward — right? I mean, weren’t we all told that “hard work pays off” at some point in our lives? For budding …
The health care system will cause its own physician shortage
“When people think of eating disorders, the image is often of an emaciated, white teenage girl in the hospital hooked up to feeding tubes. In fact, eating disorders are varied in how they present in a person, and they certainly do not ‘look’ a certain way.
Eating disorders occur in all cultures, …
Eating disorder myths debunked [PODCAST]
Primary care is foundational to the U.S. health system, but not enough students are entering the field. Whether students are interested in medicine, nursing, social work or pharmacy — it is critical that we share the exciting aspects of primary care and then adequately prepare them to work in the field. High loan burden and low pay relative to other potential jobs and specialties and training within a culture that …
Flip the axis: primary care rotations
The landscape of medicine and health care is constantly changing. With the integration of electronic medical records (EMR) and other technological advances, physicians and health care providers must be much more adaptable than ever before and possess unprecedented levels of technical literacy in the field.
The modernization of health care has been a driver of burnout, defined as “the constellation of symptoms that occur when your energy account …
I used to spend most of my day listening.
As a high school counselor, I encouraged teenagers to talk. Feeling stressed, they said, is their automatic response to demanding teachers, parents’ high expectations, and the drama of shifting friendship alliances.
Daily dilemmas and problems affect everyone: the terrified boy who just heard rumors he was going to be jumped after school, the teary-eyed girl whose teacher embarrassed her in front of the …
10 suggestions for a smoother high school experience
I walk onto the inpatient unit on a Monday morning. The feeling of discomfort begins to overwhelm me. Perhaps this was due to being forced back to inpatient, but I felt it had to do with changes in the process.
I started my training at a time when therapy was a central part of education. Understanding even the most psychotic patients was a key element of our field. I do not …
Re-wounding the wounded healer
“If we want to alleviate the fatigue and frustration women physicians are experiencing, we can always start by solving two old problems: (1) All doctors need fewer bureaucratic tasks forced upon them, and (2) women physicians must be able to work in environments free of harassment and discrimination.
There’s yet another solution …
Gender inequality is making burnout worse [PODCAST]
Many women change their last names after marriage, after a divorce, or just because. During my 30-year career in medicine, I have had three last names. Yes, not a typo, three!
I got married for the first time during my internal medicine residency. I didn’t change my name and was “Mrs. Married Name” to friends and family and “Dr. Maiden Name” at work. I grew as a physician, conducted research, and …
3 decades in medicine: new name(s), same me
Medical care continues to advance at a frenetic pace, with new diagnostics, treatments, and therapies arriving monthly. So why are medical communications still stuck in the 20th century?
Despite the ubiquitous presence of smartphones among consumers of all ages, medical practices still use one-to-one telephone calls as the primary communications vehicle. While some communications have moved to patient portals, responses often take hours — or days — if they are answered …
3 reasons practices should implement patient-initiated collaborative texting
In the mid 16th century, surgical education was that of a true apprenticeship. The student learned through direct observership and imitation of a skilled, elder surgeon. It wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that surgical education evolved into a formalized and structured program. Dr. William Osler introduced the concepts of specialty clerkships and bedside rounds in the late 1800s. Graduated autonomy, introduced by Dr. William Halsted in the …
Receiving feedback and critique is a complicated art
“COVID-19 melted down the world at a very inopportune time in history. Just as medicine was getting a handle on previously intractable conditions, from sophisticated diabetes management to less invasive surgical procedures, a new threat that devastates our population with few good treatments overwhelms health care.
Medical workers come to the rescue, …
Thoughts of a retired physician [PODCAST]
In a viral video shared on Twitter in 2021, we see a line of women waiting to board a flight from Santo Domingo to Atlanta. Airline staff in safety vests stand around the women, all of whom are sitting—in wheelchairs. These women had recently undergone the popular Brazilian butt lift or “BBL” surgery, where fat is transferred from one part of the body to the buttocks, despite …
The cost of cosmetic procedures resulting in short-term disabilities
I’m not sure about you, but May 27 cannot come soon enough for me. Finally, after three years, we will get the next installment of Stranger Things and another round of monsters, friendships, and 80s memories.
For those of us Gen X-ers who grew up when all that retro fashion and music wasn’t retro, it’s a return to simpler days. Thankfully we didn’t have to worry about demogorgons IRL back then.
Now …
How the EHR is like a growing blob
When Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa acquired the company that makes Lovot, a pet-sized robot for emotional support, it spoke about more than a financial investment in robotics. The news was tied to love, companionship, and healing. It also revealed the global loneliness and social isolation pandemic. The use of assistive robots is gaining popularity in Japan and China to deal with the caregiver shortage because social isolation is …
Simple solutions for social connections
“It’s apparent to most that the dark clouds and stormy waters in the business of health care continue. There is much that needs attention from both health care workers and consumers.
We have learned that when we work together, strength, creativity, and energy multiply exponentially.
We need to move forward and create a …
Nurses are struggling in isolation [PODCAST]
Burnout is a sign of something even more sinister. It’s a sign that our society is out of balance. We’ve become a society that values productivity above all else. We’re always working, hustling, and trying to get ahead. And, as a result, we’re burnout. We’re exhausted, anxious and depressed.
We’re struggling to keep up with the demands of our jobs and our lives. And, worst of all, we’re not even sure …
Burnout is a sign of something more sinister
Although feminist movements include the fight for reproductive rights, they tend to forget to center on justice. Historically, the protection of women’s reproductive rights has not been a priority for governments; however, the drive and the act of attacking and dismantling a women’s bodily autonomy and dignity has been and continues to be. In the U.S., the Second Great Awakening, a period in the late 1800s that …
Shift from fighting for reproductive rights to fighting for reproductive justice
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