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Mental health issues and the African American community

Policy

March 30, 2022

Death is a topic that most people try to avoid. Death by suicide is also something that that remains rarely discussed. This is probably because suicide is scary, particularly if we have thoughts of being the loved one left behind. People considering suicide don’t take the time to let people know that they are considering suicide; they tend to keep all these things bottled up to themselves.

As one writer Read more…

Mental health issues and the African American community

Will Smith’s slap is a trauma response

Melissa Hankins, MD

Conditions

March 30, 2022

This is what the result of unresolved trauma looks like.

What we witnessed Will Smith do in assaulting Chris Rock during the Academy Award ceremony was a trauma response.

While I am in no way condoning violence, this is a very public and important opportunity for us to understand what a trauma response can look like.

A trauma response can take many forms and look like:

Slapping someone for saying “the wrong” thing.

…

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Will Smith’s slap is a trauma response

Why this medical school is doing it right

Joe Mandato and Ryan Van Wert, MD

Education

March 30, 2022

It’s been shown that patients can benefit from a satisfying medical experience and the actual clinical treatment. The satisfying medical experience in and of itself leads to trust, follow-through, and health improvements.

Medical school is the optimal time to learn how to deliver a great patient experience. In med school, one develops formative views on the culture of medical practice. Knowing this, we looked at an institution that …

Support desperate health care workers now, before your life counts on them [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

March 29, 2022

“America’s health care workers are on the brink of collapse. If we want them to hold on and be there for us when we are too sick to walk, stand or breathe, we must act now.

Cast aside political opinions. Follow CDC guidelines. Wear masks when you are in a group …

Death of a nurse: a soliloquy

Debbie Moore-Black, RN

Conditions

March 29, 2022

It’s not what you think. It’s not my actual mortality.

It’s that emotional death.

Of being a nurse.

If you’ve never been a nurse. Then you will never know.

It’s that’s giving of yourself: heart and soul.

Constantly and forever.

It’s not being with your family for Easter or Thanksgiving or Christmas.

It’s not being able to go to the bathroom or even take a 30-minute break in 12 to 13 hours.

It’s being surrounded by bully nurses …

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Death of a nurse: a soliloquy

The key to loving our lives and our careers starts with us

Tammie Chang, MD

Physician

March 29, 2022

An excerpt from Boundaries For Women Physicians: Love Your Life And Career In Medicine.

When I openly share my experiences with friends and colleagues, I am amazed by how many other women physicians tell me they have had similar ones. They admit to feeling so low that suicide or …

2 insight-provoking questions when starting over

Jillian Rigert, MD, DMD

Physician

March 29, 2022

“Peace is your home, integrity is the way to it, and everything you long for will meet you there.”
– Martha Beck

In 2017, the blueprint I had crafted for my life evaporated before my eyes.

Up until that point, I had systematically checked off the steps to becoming an Air Force oral and maxillofacial surgeon. I was in the Air Force, and I was in oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS) residency. I …

How to close gaps in social determinants of health [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

March 28, 2022

“As a doctor, it is pretty humbling to reflect on the fairly minimal impact our health care system has on individuals’ overall health. One study I find particularly intriguing shows that socioeconomic factors (e.g., education and income), and physical environment (e.g., security and safety at home and reliable access …

A physician was bullied and fired by the bully

Kellie Lease Stecher, MD

Physician

March 28, 2022

I don’t think I became a whole person until my mid-30s. When you spend the majority of your life in school, training, and building a practice, everything else goes on hold, or autopilot. There are very few things that I made conscious decisions about. Becoming a doctor was something I decided in childhood, and then it was a mission that I felt I needed to achieve. Every action in my …

Those with the power to reform our system have little incentive to act

Alexander Raines, MD, PhD

Physician

March 28, 2022

It is no surprise that burnout is surging along with this latest pandemic wave. Exhaustion—both physical and moral—is the ashen heart of burnout. Even as the flood of patients recedes in some areas, health care operations are hardly back to normal as many systems struggle with staffing shortages. In the hospital where I work, nurses have carried up to double their normal patient load, while the remaining phlebotomists on staff …

The center of gravity in health care and the role of primary care

Sara Pastoor, MD

Physician

March 28, 2022

I’ve been as guilty as anyone of leaving my patient out on a limb. As a practicing primary care physician, I’ve had patients with diabetes who observe Ramadan, but I had no idea how to support them during their fast. I’ve had transgender patients yet didn’t have the right language to talk about their health, and nothing in the electronic health record (EHR) seemed designed to support them. I’ve sent …

A physician’s new rules of time management [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

March 27, 2022

“Pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist, woman, mother, wife, friend, mentor. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t trying to “work smarter, not harder” to get it all done and feel good about myself, only to begin climbing the mountain with a fresh list the next day. My goals were simple: peace …

A full-time equivalent is 2,080 work hours annually

Deepak Gupta, MD, Sarwan Kumar, MD, Shushovan Chakrabortty, MD, PhD

Physician

March 27, 2022

The magical number for one full-time equivalent (1-FTE) professional is 2,080 work hours annually — 40 work hours per week for 52 weeks in a year.

Professionals can work extra hours during non-vacation weeks to make up for opportunities lost during vacation weeks. For example, 1-FTE can work 52 work hours per week for 40 weeks in a year to accrue a 12-week annual vacation, while 0.5-FTE will need to work …

Gender disparities in medical leadership and entrepreneurship

Becca Hayes, MD

Physician

March 27, 2022

Listen up, ladies. All of you strong, brilliant, and deserving women in medicine. The physicians, NPs, PAs, nurses, and other women currently in or thinking about future leadership roles in health care.

Listen. Up.

Are you aware that male physicians make up to $2 million more than female physicians over their medical career? If not, I suggest you read more here: “Women Earn $2 Million Less Than Men in …

A critique of interoperability, big data, and AI in medicine

Michael R. McGuire

Tech

March 27, 2022

Today medical records are developed for a single encounter (an outpatient visit or hospital stay). The medical records for an encounter are signed off at the end of the encounter and cannot be changed. An addendum medical record can be added later to correct misinformation in the encounter medical records, but this is seldom done.

This process enables medical documents to be legal recordings of what happened during each encounter. But …

Health care and the Latinx experience [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

March 26, 2022

“Knowing that an important number of Latinx are not yet fully vaccinated and understanding the health care gaps and social disparities that affect this group, it is reasonable to assume that the Latinx community will be disproportionately affected by the pain and sorrow of the new wave of the …

The true story of morphine milligram equivalents

Charles Dinerstein, MD, MBA

Meds

March 26, 2022

They are the foundation of the CDC’s 2016 opioid guidelines, resulting in legislation limiting opioid prescribing in 36 states. Morphine milligram equivalents, or MMEs, are used to set arbitrary prescribing limits for opioids by physicians since many state legislators fail to understand — and translate into policy and law — the ’16 guidelines. If we had all known the history of MMEs, perhaps we would not have been so eager …

Doctor, why don’t you care?

Anne M. Miller, DO

Physician

March 26, 2022

“Doctor, why don’t you remember when I was last hospitalized? I told you about that two months ago. You obviously don’t care if you can’t remember. Is all of psychiatry like this? Maybe I need to see someone else. Why won’t you prescribe Ambien for my insomnia during pregnancy along with all the other medications I am on? My last doctor had no problem giving me Ambien during pregnancy.”

This was …

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Doctor, why don’t you care?

Restoring the value of primary care

Robert Pearl, MD

Physician

March 26, 2022

In most professions, the pecking order is clear, even when there’s no formal designation.

Take pro football. Although nothing in the rulebook grants status or authority to certain players, everyone knows the starting quarterback is the most valuable person on the field. That’s because no other player can do more to win (or lose) a game.

You might assume the same type of logic applies to medicine. If saving …

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Restoring the value of primary care

Patients need palliative care to manage the pain of sickle cell disease [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

March 25, 2022

“Sickle cell disease (SCD) affects about 100,000 Americans as an inherited genetic disorder with intermittent exacerbations requiring hospitalization. SCD is also a painful and complicated disease with no single physician specialist that can provide pain relief. While SCD pain is similar in severity to cancer pain, patients struggle to find …

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