It’s one of the last weeks in December. If it was any other year, I would have realized that Christmas is around the corner, the air would be filled with a different, radiant, joyful kind of energy, and most of us would be focused on all the lessons this year has taught us. Unfortunately, this year is not like any other year. The air feels dense and heavy. You can’t …
Arguably one of the most famous statues of Western civilization is of the Laocoon group, made between the second century B.C. and the first century A.D, and discovered and excavated in Rome in 1506. Michelangelo himself was supposedly one of the first to view the newly discovered statue, and it is said that it …
“Fifteen minutes for a checkup or urgent problem, thirty minutes for a physical. In the tiny gasps of time in between: Refilling scripts, checking labs, and signing medical supply orders and insurance authorization requests. Maybe lunch. Maybe a chance to get to the restroom if I am lucky. Clicking, always …
I see you, COVID. I see you in the hospitals each day. I don on my surgical cap, scrubs, goggles, N95 mask, and gown. Are you there?
I see you in the scared eyes of my patients, in their tears, and in their regrets.
I see you in their cough, gasps for air, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and muscle aches.
I see you when they cannot smell or taste.
I see you when they have …
In 2010, a landmark study from Princeton was published “proving” that money just doesn’t buy happiness. Study participants were asked to compare their emotional well-being from yesterday to today, and it appeared that making more than $75,000 a year didn’t lead to concurrent increases in well-being. Since then, Americans have been flooded with the psychological opium of mindfulness, yoga, and leaning out, urging contentment instead with the …
Studies reveal that more than half of all practicing physicians demonstrate signs of burnout. Contemporary physicians face tremendous pressures due to a confluence of factors, including balancing heavy patient loads within constrained schedules, the increasing complexity of patient health problems, and increasingly burdensome COVID-related documentation requirements.
These circumstances—and more—challenge physician empathy, and even to some extent dampen it even further. Multiple research studies document a decline in empathy that appears to …
“When we hear skepticism, our first instinct may be to end the conversation. After all, why spend our time trying to convince someone who has made up their mind? Our second instinct may be to counter the person’s position without pausing to hear more about their perspective. Unfortunately, trying to …
As a child, I remember watching superstar athletes like Wayne Gretzky glide so effortlessly on the ice and dreaming about how easy life would be to be blessed with innate talent. “Talent would make my life so easy,” so I thought. I had no clue how much work had to be invested to make talent look seamless. A little later in life, I remember hearing the quip coined by Thomas …
I think it is remarkably irresponsible to have a balm and refuse to use it.
I think it is remarkably irresponsible to have a salve and refuse to apply it.
I think it is remarkably irresponsible to have a cure and refuse to accept it.
And you’d think that at some point, reasonably intelligent people would get it. You’ve been somewhere in the sanctuary all your life. You grew up in the church. …
“The pandemic has demonstrated the value of online platforms, especially in health care – but equitable access has not matched this growth. Sadly, many Americans cannot reap the benefits of connectivity. State and federal funding sources are required to enable digital health equity. Moreover, there should be a focus on …
Earlier this year, Houston Methodist gave its 26,000 hospital employees an ultimatum: Get vaccinated or get a new job. It was one of the nation’s first vaccine mandates. And it was a big, multilayered risk: with legal, financial and ethical consequences all hanging in the balance.
In the end, …
The vitriol that characterizes discussions about vaccines, masking, and school policies has been deeply disturbing. I am a physician who is concerned about COVID. At first, I thought that everyone would want to be vaccinated. I thought that the pandemic would cause everyone to isolate and socially distance to protect themselves, their families, and their communities. Now we know it did not turn out that way. As I reflect on …
An excerpt from The Addicted Child: A Parent’s Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse.
How do you know if your teen has a substance problem? The inability to control substance use despite negative consequences is a classic definition of a severe substance use disorder. But substances aren’t the only thing afflicting adolescents. Another dangerous behavior is invading the adolescent population: process disorders. …
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Currently, there is an outcry against the pressures of breastfeeding, with an underlying backlash against the stigma of bottle feeding. Commercials from formula companies, such as Bobbie, are playing at the hearts of struggling breastfeeding mothers. Touted as an organic European formula comparable with breastmilk, Bobbie is the solution. Famous stars, like Queer Eye’s Tan France, emphatically narrates his decision on choosing formula over donor milk for their family. Over …
This episode is sponsored by the Rush University Series at The Podcast by KevinMD.
As we enter a year and a half into a worldwide pandemic, many of us working in health care are fatigued, over-worked, and burned …
“As a practicing surgeon for 30 years in the super-specialized field of otology, neurotology and skull base surgery, I have been privy to some of the most disturbing realities of surgical care. Often, these realities are bleaker than most people expect. One thing physicians, and the general population, need to …
Where do I begin? Maybe at the beginning.
Let’s start with the degradation and devaluation of nurses across this country.
For decades, I lived the devaluing of nurses. Daily huddles from our nurse managers, ER nurses, ICU nurses, and behavioral health nurses. Emails and huddles about downsizing. Nurse-patient ratios. Decreasing nursing staff and increasing patients. ICU nurses typically had a 2:1 ratio and, depending on the patient’s acuity, a 1:1 ratio. But …
Mary (identifying information changed) was extremely pleasant, to say the least.
By the time I met her on the senior unit, she had seemingly befriended even the orneriest of our geriatric patients. She wandered and danced about the unit, speaking with each fellow patient she encountered in a style one nurse called “cheerfully mad.”
Her strategy, maximalist and crude but stunningly effective, was to talk your ear off in a joyful stream …
“The same question could be asked about the joy and meaning in medicine. Where does it dwell? And the answer may be the same. It dwells wherever we choose to let joy and meaning in medicine into our physician-healer lives.
As I look back upon my career, it saddens me to …
We’re getting into trouble. With headlines like “Why I am angry” and “Burnout rates at an all-time high,” physicians need to take a moment and breath. Unvaccinated people are presenting as very difficult patients that physicians dread.
In his landmark article, “Taking Care of the Hateful Patient,” Dr. James Groves highlighted four distinct patient types that doctors shrink from. Hateful patients are noted to cause negative feelings in …
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