“With this single word, mom had now completely altered her willingness to see the deep suffering of her child. This single word watered all of this child’s five years of depression, crippling anxiety, history full of ACEs, and very significant struggle down to a simple, selfish, flippant choice.
Furthermore, mom …
My husband and I recently had a bit of a wobble in our marriage. In truth, it was more than a wobble, and it had been building for years. I am pleased to say that we have traversed the turbulence. Not only are we once again sailing in smooth waters, but we are sailing in more idyllic waters than ever before.
Why did it happen?
For so many reasons, but I need …
“While we still lack a complete cause and effect model of Alzheimer’s disease, there is no doubt that the etiology is multifaceted and nonlinear. This accounts for the fact that it takes an incredibly long time for Alzheimer’s disease to develop. I mention this because one of the major problems …
Oh, how the tide has turned. Three months ago, COVID was ravaging my homeland, India. The Delta variant was burning through the country like an uncontrolled wildfire. People carted dying relatives town to town, desperately seeking hospital beds or a whiff of oxygen. A cousin in India said, “COVID is not taking lives, just the beds. Lack of oxygen is taking lives.”
I watched India’s suffering unfold and felt guilty for …
The COVID-19 pandemic spurred an avalanche of mental health issues that have continued to plague the general public over the last 18 months – with the full impact from lingering quarantines, prolonged social distancing, and now the fear over the unknowns of new variants. In fact, nearly 70 percent of working adults say this has been the most stressful time period of their lives.
Fortunately, along with the unprecedented surge …
“Dehumanizing patients can lead to indifference in physicians. It is a privilege to be trusted to take care of every patient we encounter, yet we can lose sight of this and begin to see our patients as a burden, or as units of work, rather than as individuals. When individual …
My son is a fourth-year medical student, and we have had some great discussions about credit cards recently, including their benefits. I believe this information would be helpful for all medical students to consider.
As a student my son once preferred to use a debit card or cash to keep his expenses controlled. This financially conservative approach is what he was taught during his young adult days in our home. Avoidance …
“Toward the end of my clinical career, I didn’t feel like I had control over much at all. The patient safety issues loomed large. We used ridiculous workarounds for broken processes. The constant vigilance to provide excellent care in a suboptimal environment was exhausting. I didn’t see anything I …
Four years ago, I was ready to throw in the towel. I practiced for 22 years in a large metropolitan hospital, became very involved in resident education, clinical program directorship, medical staff affairs, in addition to a busy hospital-based surgical practice. I watched as the environment of care for clinicians and the quality of the relationship between the medical staff and system administration steadily deteriorated.
My small, single-specialty surgical group merged …
COVID-19 has raised many ethical challenges for health care providers, including the level of risk they must take when providing patient care. Early in the pandemic, the ability to mitigate these risks was relatively limited, especially when caring for hospitalized patients. Shortages of personal protective equipment rendered mitigation even more challenging.
As a result, it has been reported that 3,607 frontline health care workers died of COVID-19 in the U.S. from …
“Physicians have had a rough century, so far. In addition to battling COVID-19, doctors have spent the past two decades fighting the health care industry’s fiercest players and losing, badly.
Power in the industry now belongs to health insurance companies, major drugmakers, and hospital tycoons. Physicians feel beaten up, burned …
Although Pride Month is over, awareness and advocacy for equity among the LGBTQ+ community must continue to be prioritized. This is especially important in health care settings. Many LGBTQ+ people feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in doctors’ offices, and more than 40 percent have experienced discrimination in health care environments. As a result, LGBTQ+ people postpone or avoid care at a rate that is 2-3x greater than the broader U.S. population. …
I just tested positive for COVID-19.
I was vaccinated earlier this year.
I am scared.
I am confident I will get through this.
I received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine earlier this year, and I just tested positive for COVID-19. It’s almost comical that I am positive now. I worked as a resident physician in the hospital from the beginning, during the first surge, and through August 2020. Since then, I have been …
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“Maybe it’s a testament to a hardy relationship that there was no resulting argument. Without thinking, I blurted out, ‘You are so sexist!’ I could immediately tell by my husband’s face, his upper eyelids and eyebrows lifted a bit, his mouth freeze-framed in a small ‘o’ — my exclamation surprised …
Everybody dies. And doctors can’t change that reality.
But we’ve created a system where we lead people to believe immortality is possible. We expect clear-cut answers to health questions. We’ve been trained to look for multiple-choice questions with an answer key that tells us the correct solutions. As doctors, we’re expected to be selfless, altruistic superhuman helpers who always know the answers and will sacrifice ourselves to benefit everyone else. And …
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 be more aware of is the very real racial disparity in surgical care.
Are the outcomes for Black and Hispanic patients …
The problem with feeling like an imposter is thinking there’s something wrong with it.
I know this is different from any way you have thought about it, but humor me. What happens when we are offered an opportunity but we feel like an imposter?
We hide.
We overwork to compensate.
We look around at our colleagues and resent them. Because why do they get to feel so secure? Why aren’t they feeling insecure? They …
“Suffering something similar in my career, I know the detrimental impact of not having a voice or being heard in the medical community. Medical professionals do not want to appear weak, so they continue until something breaks.
As a pain physician, I understand where the frontline health care workers are coming …
“It’s experimental.”
“It alters your DNA.”
“It may cause long-term problems.”
“It’s too new, too rushed. I want more time.”
I hear this nonsense from patients all day.
None are docs, virologists, microbiologists, immunologists, public health officials, medical researchers, nor intensive care docs. COVID can kill them in a particularly unpleasant way; with 99 percent+ effectiveness, the vaccine prevents them from dying from COVID, but they still recite a litany of scientifically illiterate reasons for …
As surges of the Delta variant alarm officials and citizens in this country and around the world, while the cases of COVID-19 have reached more than 200 million worldwide, a less visible threat re-emerges.
If health care professionals are not allowed to perform non-emergency procedures, as was the case in 2020, patients suffering with chronic pain such as jaw pain, may be left helpless.
The COVID-19 …
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