To my residency class:
The clock is ticking, its hands spinning around its face faster and faster until I feel dizzy and disoriented. The remainder of the academic year can be measured in days, even hours for some. The carousel is slowing down to let some off, some on. Some, like me, will remain in the saddles of their brightly painted ponies. The cheerful calliope melody becomes distorted with the change …
A patient groans in agony lying atop a rigid spine board, carried by paramedics into the ER, his neck in a protective collar. The paramedics shout a summary of the accident. Monitors are attached to the man, flashing and beeping the cadence of vital signs. Nurses and physicians swarm. Gloved hands comb through brown hair for bumps or lacerations. They remove his clothes, feeling for pulses in the neck and …
In a recent People article, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek shared some good news. Diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in March, Trebek said he was told that he has been responding very well to his chemotherapy regimen, and that he’s in “near remission.”
He went on to say, “It’s kind of mind-boggling. … The doctors said they hadn’t seen this kind of positive …
It is honorable to fight a battle in the face of an inevitable ending while not knowing when that end may come.
First day of third year — the year most medical students take a sigh of relief as they put their Step 1 book on the shelf and prepare to face the wards:
I happened to draw the short straw by having my surgical rotation first, one that often brings an …
Physicians have a long history of discriminating against patients, and racial discrimination only scratches the surface of current problems facing patients who seek access to care. The Tuskegee Syphilis trials demonstrated how the medical community exploited and compromised the trust of African American patients. Recent research indicates that out of a study of 222 residents and medical students, about half demonstrated false beliefs concerning biological differences between white and black …
As I listened to my attending explain how during her residency training she was on call every third night, I realized how the definition of “call” had significantly changed since that time. For her, it meant her shift started at 6 a.m. and ended at 8 p.m. the next day, totaling the shift to upwards of 36 hours. My call, on the other hand, was a mere 6 a.m. to …
Every hospitalist heard that locum tenens work pays better than permanent. Of course, I did, too, when I first started practicing. This was one of the reasons why I switched to the full-time locum tenens years ago.
Now, things have changed since then, and employed hospitalist salaries have been rising steadily over the years. It became obvious, then, that $150 per hour for locum tenens work doesn’t cut it …
Whether to have a child before becoming an attending physician is a personal choice, but as a fertility specialist, I’m concerned that many people — including physicians — overestimate the effectiveness of today’s fertility treatments.
In the U.S., the average age at which women have their first child went from 21.4 years in 1970 to 26.6 in 2016. Experts attribute that in part to more people seeking advanced education and taking …
Learn about the differences between polymyositis and dermatomyositis the Medcomic way.
Illustrated by Jorge Muniz and music by Neil Bobenhouse.
Image credit: Medcomic.com
If you ask people if there is evil in the world, a lot of them will smile politely at such an obviously Medieval (or Neanderthal) view of the world. Which, of course, is a bit of an insult to both groups who were from all evidence quite intelligent folks.
Some might rattle off some examples of evil. Things like intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and assorted others. Disregard for the imminent …
An excerpt from Recapturing Joy in Medicine,
During my year as chief resident, I was also president of the Florida Association of Family Medicine Residents. The faculty at my residency program inspired me by their excellence as clinicians and teachers. I trusted their judgment and insight, so when they encouraged …
I left a full-time academic position five years ago because I was literally, “check-all-the-boxes,” burned out. In looking back during that time prior to my decision to leave, I recall months of feeling overwhelmed, emotionally exhausted, depressed, and in a sense grieved for the loss of what I envisioned my career path to be until retirement. It was not until one of my favorite patients, Mr. Young, who knew me …
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 63-year-old woman is evaluated at a follow-up appointment after undergoing right hemicolectomy for colon cancer 1 year earlier. Her paternal grandfather had colon cancer diagnosed at age 75 years. She reports that she has been feeling well and takes no medication.
All physical examination findings, including vital signs, are …
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The best lens for reflection is to be immersed in the places and people that spawned those memories. Why else would reunions matter? Twenty years after we graduated the Yale School of Medicine, I found myself on campus embracing my classmates again. But it didn’t take long before I felt something creeping up behind the celebratory mood. Amid storytelling and laughter, I couldn’t help reflecting on some of the more …
With the recent FDA approval, Zolgensma became the world’s most expensive medication. Priced at $2.125 million per patient, the one-dose gene therapy is a potential life-saver for children with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Now, the treatment is at the center of an intensifying debate over the rising price of medications.
Industry watchdogs are outraged. They say Zolgensma is merely the …
What if I told you that, as your doctor, I’d rather listen to your memoir than to your lungs? Or that while I find the sound of a beating heart a marvel to behold, I’m more interested in hearing the jazz song that you wrote or talking about the words tattooed on your left wrist. What if …
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I remember the day well. The dean of my medical school called me directly. As soon as she announced herself on the other end of the line, I knew it was bad news. Deans don’t tend to make social calls, and I was right. She was calling to tell me that I had failed the USMLE Step 1, the first in a long series of standardized national exams to complete …
I’m a 46-year-old OB/GYN. I’ve been on call at least as often as every fourth night for my entire career.
Let that sink in for a minute.
How many people get up and answer phone calls, remove ectopic pregnancies, deliver babies, and do C-sections every fourth night for an entire career? Probably not many.
It’s 4:15 a.m. I just got a call from the hospital about a patient of mine who is term, …
A kind resident or attending asks me, “I’m going for a coffee run. Can I get you anything?” I politely decline. “You sure?” “Yeah, I’m actually doing a caffeine-free residency.” A mix of utter disbelief and disgust crosses their faces, probably yours too. With skepticism, people ask: “Why?” I actually hate the taste of coffee. (That is absurd in Seattle, where I’m doing my residency training.) Whenever I try a …
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I am a young physician practicing medicine in the “motherland” of God-gifted Ethiopia, which is located in eastern Africa, south of the Sahara Desert. I want to share my personal story, as well as to expose some of the serious problems facing physicians and patients in my country.
I started medical school, which requires the highest academic performance of any career path when I was 18 after completing secondary school. Despite …
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