“Patients want more than simply learning about a problem and how to treat it. Patients want reassurance. While I summarized the proposed surgical treatment, I watched for signs of anxiety or lack of understanding. Ultimately, my patient wanted to have confidence that I was the right person for the job and …
What patients need vs. what patients want [PODCAST]
There has been a lot of increased focus on burnout in health workers over the past two years—with good reason. The added stress of a global health crisis to an inefficient system created a compounding effect on a pre-existing issue. This has led to soaring rates of burnout and increased the overwhelm, moral injury, trauma, and stress that clinicians were already facing.
The great resignation is at our doorstep as well. …
5 reasons why women in medicine are burned out (and what to do about it)
I was at my gym last night. Billy Joel’s ballad about trust was the metronome to my squats. Though vaccinated and boosted, I was wearing my mask. I know the latest evidence about vaccines and natural immunity, the dramatic transmissibility but mild virulence of the latest Omicron variant.
So my mask was only for optics. Someone might recognize me as a doctor in the local hospital where masking is still mandated. …
A matter of trust: Bill Maher loses trust in medical professionals
Visiting the doctor’s office can be a source of anxiety for millions of patients, who often fear unknown costs, an unexpected diagnosis, or exposure risk to diseases, like COVID-19.
On the other side of the equation, business stakeholders of a community-based primary care setting are struggling to exist within the confines of 20th-century technology and strategies. The Physicians Foundation estimates that 16,000 physician practices closed during the pandemic …
The inevitable reboot of the primary care experience
“Arguably one of the most overlooked yet incredibly important aspects of your malpractice insurance policy is the Consent to Settle Provision. You’re paying thousands of dollars a year for your malpractice insurance; you should have a say in how your claims are handled, don’t you think? Today we’re going to talk …
Understanding your medical malpractice insurance policy [PODCAST]
Here are the top 10 ways how and why doctors lie. See if you recognize any.
1. Doctors lie about work hours. When logging actual work hours exceeding the weekly “80-hour cap,” new docs are cited for duty-hour violations. Labeled as inefficient, overworked residents may be sent for a psych eval and prescribed stimulants to force compliance. “We were all taken into a room by the program director and told to …
There are not many situations in general medicine where a doctor can affect an instant cure, and the patient will call them a “miracle worker.” Most patient visits end with a prescription or two or some instructions along with the admonition, “You’ll feel better in a few days.”
One exception to this rule: dislocations.
A simple dislocation happens when the end of a bone is pulled out of its socket (or niche) …
Dislocations: an exception to the rule
On May 2, 2022, news broke that Roe v. Wade would be overturned according to an initial draft majority opinion released by Politico. In the political economy that we find ourselves in, this news has had the immediate consequence of furthering divisions between Americans — those in favor of the ruling and those against. While much rhetoric about the morality of the underlying subject matter already …
Roe v. Wade: questions that need to be addressed in the near future
In a world of extremes where we are operating in black and white, living in the gray is where the real work happens of confronting truths of left and right, conservative and liberal, and opening up to varying perspectives that reflect diversity.
This is the space where I’ve witnessed the possibilities of navigating the divided worlds of pro-life activism and reproductive justice.
Vice President Kamala Harris recently acknowledged the …
Protecting Black women’s maternal health is urgent
“Sufferers of mental illness often believe that others feel they have control of their symptoms, only having to decide to not be, for example, depressed. While they themselves suffer the symptoms of mental illness, they often have the feeling that they should be able to control them. Depending upon their experience, the …
Mental illness and suicide: a physician’s story [PODCAST]
This spring, kids will be returning to extra-curricular activities and organized sports in the community, much of which was canceled over the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As these activities resume, now is a good time to learn what to do in the event of a concussion.
Concussions are one of the most common sports injuries in children and youth. Canadian data show there are nearly …
What to do when your child suffers a concussion
Iconic singer Naomi Judd died at age 76, one day before she was to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Her daughters, Wynonna and Ashley Judd, shared a statement confirming her death: “Today [April 30, 2022] we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness.” An exact cause of death was not disclosed, and no additional information was forthcoming. …
Why can’t we say the word, “suicide?”
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, health care innovation has been occurring at an unprecedented rate. A growing focus on technology – and the ways that it can help improve patient care and the provider experience – is now at the forefront, and many organizations are reexamining how they can implement new tools and processes in their practices.
In my field of interventional cardiology, one of the …
Robotics, automation, and the future of remote health care
“I started planning my escape in late 2020. I would find a way to quit health care, to cease being a practicing physician altogether. Living the life of a doctor-mom, I felt consumed with daily obligations and duties.
Guilt plagued me for feeling burdened by this life, for feeling it was a …
Permission to burn the manual [PODCAST]
If you asked the third-grade version of most doctors what they wanted to be when they grew up, I bet most would have said, “I want to be a doctor!” I doubt many would have said “hospital administrator” or “life coach.” Yet, according to a recent Medscape survey, nearly one-quarter of physicians are considering a shift to non-clinical careers. They are burned out and want to work …
Never let a bad job or bad people convince you to quit medicine
I recently came across an article in the Journal of Urology that was trying to understand the determinants of patient satisfaction in the outpatient setting. They surveyed 500 patients over two months and asked questions about demographics, expectations regarding the time frame to obtain an appointment, appointment wait times, and the amount of time they expected to be spent with them, as well as expectations of being …
Want to improve your patient reviews or relationships? Learn to be present.
In 6th grade, my humanities teacher wrote a prompt for our class final: What is the purpose of life?
I immediately grabbed my pencil and thundered away without a second thought. Five minutes in, I was still the only one writing. Rachmaninoff, the famous Russian composer who was known for intricate melodies, once said that after one has played a great many number of notes does he realize that true genius …
A state of service — and how flow can get you there
“Before retirement, I switched everything I cared about to my personal one and unsubscribed to everything I didn’t care about. For the first few months, I religiously checked my work email. Sure, I was missing important information. I finally weaned myself like a reluctant nursing baby.
On the rare occasions I check …
A physician’s personal great resignation [PODCAST]
I hope this finds you well. Today, I took some time shopping for a new outfit to wear to the upcoming festivities marking the end of your emergency medicine residency. We have celebrated many educational milestones over the years, haven’t we?
It seems like only yesterday that you started the third year of medical school. I remember the anticipation and pressure associated with moving out of the sim[ulation] lab and beginning …
A mother’s advice to her physician son
At the start of my medical school’s clinical rotations, I was prepared with new scrubs, minute facts about diabetes and kidney disease, and a stethoscope that I struggled to hear murmurs with. What I was less prepared for was the emotional toll that seeing patients would exact.
I began on my obstetrics and gynecology rotation, one known mostly for happy events with the delivery of newborn babies. Yet this was the …
What it is like to watch someone die
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