One day, a primary care physician located about two hours away called my office in a desperate attempt to find a rheumatologist. His lovely 64-year-old patient, very healthy otherwise, recently developed a severe and disabling inflammatory arthritis. After conservative treatments failed, he tried to refer the patient to the traditional medical system. However, they could not get a sooner than six months appointment. This is a symptom of a broken …
In June 2020, I wrote a short piece about the COVID vaccine that turned out to be prophetic. I said that the vaccine’s immunity might wane over time, that there might be bothersome side effects immediately, and that the public might ignore social distancing and mask-wearing once they were vaccinated. I worried that there would be political pressures to focus more on the economy than on public health.
And I wrote, …
“As I approach this last stretch of residency, still entrenched in the rigors of training and the intensity of raising three young children under five years old, I am in a unique position of being able to reflect on the years and look ahead at what I want to build …
When you enter medical school, you put your trust into an unspoken promise: Work hard, pass all your classes, and you’ll come out as a doctor after four years. While mostly true, this perception doesn’t take into account the residency application process and the possibility of graduating without a position as a physician-in-training. This thought didn’t cross my mind until I decided to apply for otolaryngology, one of the most …
“While the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and normalized the need for increased mental and behavioral health services over the last year and a half, addressing mental health issues as a regular form of their wellness will persist beyond the pandemic. However, as the adoption of virtual technologies continues to open up …
Unfortunate outcomes are inevitable even when practicing quality medicine. Most are random events, but some are medical errors. The majority of physicians have been sued and those, who have not, will be. Common to all defendants is that the lawsuit is totally fallacious.
To be fallacious, the outcome of a medical intervention must be an unpreventable random mal-occurrence. This is the only alternative to a medical error. Nevertheless, there is a …
“I’m smart enough to be a physician. As if being the smartest person in the room makes you the best physician in the room. Hint, it doesn’t. Being a good physician is a culmination of knowledge, skills, and strengths that you, as an individual physician, uniquely brings to the field.
It’s …
By now, many of you would have read my article, “Who needs scientists? It’s not like we listen to them anyway.” So, let me tell you another fiction story. But, first, I need to give you some background to this story.
Many of you would know about the theory of evolution by natural selection and how it explains the diversity we see today. It’s an excellent idea, and …
“In times of uncertainty, human behavior often makes people resort to less-than-stellar behaviors; unhealthy personal environments can become manifest as well. Often, these coincide with health care being used more frequently and the safe haven of health care delivery being sought. With all physicians being leaders, it is incumbent …
I am exhausted.
Mentally, emotionally, physically.
I fear we are reaching our breaking point. We have run a marathon, hoping that we were nearing the finish line as we saw numbers decline in June, only to be told to lace up our sneakers and start over.
Work in outpatient pediatrics is always busy in the summer – seeing our patients for school and sports physicals, marveling at how much they’ve grown since we …
“F—- you! I won’t do what you tell me!” the lyrics blare into my teenage ears, as I lip-synch to the rock band Rage Against the Machine’s song Killing In the Name. It’s 1992, and my Walkman is attached to the waistband of my Seattle Blues. It would take at least a decade to fully understand the meaning of those lyrics. Nearly thirty years later, this line …
I am a board-certified pediatrician, wife, mother of four, and host of a podcast. I have been interested in nutrition and feeding practices for as long as I can remember. In my practice as a pediatrician, I was constantly bombarded with parent concerns about children’s eating habits. Commonly parents worried that their children were not eating enough, were eating too …
“I implore you — even if it’s difficult — if you don’t like your doctor, take the time and find a new one!
How do you do that? Check your insurance for who they cover, and then ask your friends who they see and like. Google the physician. Google the practice. …
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Ask any physician how they are doing today, and you’ll probably hear some version of frustrated, tired, and sad. It’s not the lump-in-your-throat type sadness. It’s that my-mind-and-soul-are-tired sadness. The feeling you have when all you can see is the conflict and the angst that seems to fill the world right now. The feeling that the world is burning and we are powerless to stop it.
I am a physician who …
“We focus on ensuring our solution works equally well for English speakers with any accent. We regularly hear from doctors how much of a difference this makes in their ability to deliver high-quality patient care. It’s our hope that more health tech vendors will take a good look at what …
“You’re superficial,” the dean of the curriculum explained to me as we sat in an empty lecture hall. I had just finished a lecture when he pulled me aside to share his assessment of my progress as a student. By this point in my second year of medical school, I had become more focused on the health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer [LGBTQ] persons and communities, …
Fun fact: The first recorded use of electric stimulation to ease pain was in … get ready … CE 46! That’s right, nearly 2,000 years ago, ancient Roman writer Scribonius Largus described the use of torpedo fish, aquatic animals capable of electrical discharge, to heal. This system is still as common in health care settings as a conventional TENS Unit (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation). Similarly, many health care IT innovations …
“I bring this to your attention because, in 1971, I took an oath to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to all indentured pupils who have taken the Healer’s Oath. Having done so, if it strikes you that, during the aforementioned trial, an opportunity was missed, only to be rectified by …
It is said that everything that moves has a breaking point. Engineers understand this concept, and they have developed intricate methods to understand when metals will reach their breaking point if they sustain repeated back and forth stress.
It becomes crucial to understand that when metals break, the consequences have substantial implications as many industries rely on machines to be efficient and safe. If a machine shuts down due to the …
“Children don’t get as sick with COVID-19” and “only children with comorbidities get very sick from COVID-19” are two statements that have concerned me during the pandemic. They have been used as statements to support loosening COVID-19 prevention measures for children, like wearing masks, and rationalizing arguments opposing vaccinating children against COVID-19. It is true that children, for the most part, do not get as sick from COVID-19. Nevertheless, while …
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