A recent excellent piece by Dr. Karen Sibert, an experienced anesthesiologist at my institution, raised some critical issues regarding how physicians are thought of by non-physicians, and how misguided that thought process is. Indeed, our stress levels associated with the moves we make and the decisions we contemplate, some of which are made and done in milliseconds, do not come with a price tag, but do …
When I finished my training, I wish that I had known all of the options I could practice medicine. Most of us categorized our options as either “academic” practice or “private practice,” but in reality, these two options only cover the tip of the iceberg. Was my limited understanding a shortcoming of my medical training? Perhaps. I doubt that many medical schools back then actually had seminars on practicing medicine. …
On a rare Sunday morning, I woke and had the time to make breakfast for my kids and their cousin, who’d stayed the night. My nephew said, “Thanks, Aunt Erin, I feel like I never see you.”
To which my oldest (10) stated very matter-of-factly, with no ill-intent: “That’s because she’s never home.”
Being a full time, private practice physician and mom to 5 kids, with a healthy social life, it’s extremely …
High blood pressure is the silent killer. It puts people at risk for heart attacks, strokes, vascular disease, kidney failure. It is basically really bad to have longstanding, undertreated high blood pressure.
But it is also harmful to be told you have high blood pressure when you don’t, and to be treated for high blood pressure when that treatment won’t benefit you. So when your doctor diagnoses you with high blood …
Talking to patients on the phone can be very efficient and quite rewarding, like when I called a worried patient today and told her that her chest CT showed an improving pneumonia and almost certainly no cancer, but a repeat scan some months down the road would still be a good idea. She told me she was feeling better, but still quite weak and that her sputum was still dark …
An excerpt from Stay Away From My ER, and other fun bits of wisdom.
1. You don’t like to be told what to do. Especially not by arrogant doctors, who act as if they know better, just because they’ve been through a few decades of training!
2. Your …
Kahlil Gibran writes, “In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.” What types of outcomes can physicians and patients achieve in healing, living, and life when Gibran’s message is incorporated into the physician-patient relationship? Can humanism in medicine become even more humanistic?
“Humanism in medicine” is characterized by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation as respectful …
I’ve just discharged a kid with a cough, and there are no patients waiting to be seen. “I’ll be back,” I tell the nurse, as I slip away to the hospital kitchen and unlock the door. I steal two frozen grilled cheese sandwiches from the freezer and throw them into the microwave. Minutes later, I’m in the call room.
I take a couple of bites and can already feel acid rising …
Americans are not fans of socialized medicine. Sure, some people want socialized health care payment, including many people who are fans of Medicare for all. But even most Bernie Sanders supporters probably aren’t in favor of socializing the entire U.S. health care system, thereby making hospitals and medical clinics into government property. Americans are proud of the high quality of care offered by non-government providers, from their local community …
First, you have to call up your daughter to pick you up and take you to the lab. It’s hard for the nurse to find your vein. The pain from his fishing around in your arm is not nearly as bad as the pain you always have in your hip, and back, and shoulders, but it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and you cry a little bit. The …
One of the largest problems in our ER, it seems, is that there is a subset of patients who visit us on a routine basis. Commonly known as “the regulars,” these familiar faces are sprinkled throughout our day between all our other patient visits. Whether it be for chronic pain, for chronic illness, for companionship, simply to have a place to hang out for a few hours, or to get …
“Aren’t you happy for me?” asks the patient smiling from the exam chair in my office. I say yes, but that’s not entirely true.
Happiness isn’t the right word. Conflicted might be it. How do I reconcile my feelings when this patient, who I am not sure is deserving, reports that he was awarded Social Security disability?
Sure, he has severe arthritis, wildly uncontrolled diabetes, and a massive skin breakdown of his …
Egotism is a common trait among doctors, although most of us keep it under adequate control when dealing with patients. The ideal doctor-parent encounter has been described as a collaboration among equals, each of which brings expertise to the exchange; the doctor knows medicine, the parent knows the child. This is the ideal, although sometimes the reality falls short of it. The way our medical system is now structured gives …
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I think it’s time for physicians to end the assault on the clinical practices of PAs and NPs.
Are you worried about PAs and NPs taking your job? If you’re a good doctor, you should stop worrying. Great PAs and NPs are everywhere, and I think it’s time physicians embraced them.
PAs and NPs have excellent skills
My first rotation as a third-year medical student was in the emergency department. There was a …
If physicians are “muggers” and co-conspirators in “taking money away from the rest of us,” then journalists and economists are pontificating parasites who produce no goods or services of any real value.
I don’t think either is true, but the recent attacks on physicians by economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, and “media professional” Cynthia Weber Cascio, deserve to be called out. You …
Professional burnout is widely identified using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, which defines it along psychological lines: emotional exhaustion, a feeling of depersonalization and cynicism, and a low sense of personal accomplishment.
Accordingly, the phenomenon of physician burnout is often framed as a personal problem to be solved by means of self-care. While this approach is undoubtedly helpful, it doesn’t sufficiently address the structural factors that contribute to burnout in the first …
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A spirited discussion erupted over The Joint Commission’s role in prohibiting food in patient care areas: “Taking food and drink away from doctors and nurses is just cruel.”
The rumor that The Joint Commission is the enforcer of food and drink policies meant to starve clinicians has been around since I was working as a nurse in direct patient care capacities in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I’ve devoted plenty of time to clarifying my …
I admitted an elderly woman to the hospital recently. The previous week, she had presented to the emergency department (ED) with chest pain and shortness of breath. For some unknown reason, a urinalysis was obtained and was found to be abnormal. The patient left the hospital with a prescription for cephalexin, in addition to unexplained chest pain and shortness of breath. The patient presented to the hospital this time with, …
“Listen to your patient; he is telling you the diagnosis.”
This quote from famous physician William Osler is as true today as it was 100 years ago. And yet the latest version of President Trump’s executive order on Medicare threatens what patients overwhelmingly want: a physician involved in their care.
Section 5-C of the President’s order focuses on payment parity and supervision of mid-level providers. Changes to either issue would create unintended …
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The physician burnout crisis and a national provider shortage have fueled a growing trend in health technology focused on better utilizing physicians and reducing administrative burdens. I became a surgeon because I wanted to help people, not because I had a strong desire to push paper. The high volume of administrative tasks increasingly consumes a physician’s time that could be better spent with patients. For example, primary care physicians Read more…
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