“Always remember your humanity. You are not super-human. Make connections to your heart, to your mind, to others. Look closely at the situation that lies before you, listen carefully to all that is around you, and calm the pounding heart.
Dig deep within your psyche, ask the big questions, and most …
From a patient to health care workers: Always remember your humanity [PODCAST]
Recently, one of my coaching clients came to our Zoom session looking exhausted. I wasn’t surprised. She’s a physician, a leader at her hospital, and the past two years have been a lot for her. COVID takes its toll in many ways, and it has changed her forever. But this day her biggest challenge was something a little bit different. She was tired of cameras.
“I’m seeing so many patients through …
When telemedicine leads to burnout
“In fully-humanized health care, I envision patients as clients, with doctors as part of the health care team in a role more akin to expert consultants and skilled proceduralists. The consumer is empowered in the network to drive his or her own health — taking the central role rather than …
Humane health care outcomes by creating therapeutic alliances [PODCAST]
Each weekday morning, without fail, I awake to two texts.
One is a symptom checker from my hospital.
The other is a symptom checker from my son’s elementary school.
They serve as a persistent reminder that the pandemic isn’t over, even if we would all like to pretend that it is. In fact, my morning routine is filled with reminders that the pandemic isn’t over: as I pack masks for my children (with …
There was life before COVID, but we are not yet at the point of life after COVID
Greetings. I write briefly to inform you I am aware of your Google Review placed nearly a week ago. I’m not upset, but I must say that I am rather surprised by some of the statements. It is germane to the situation when a patient expresses displeasure about his or her experience with our office that we all collectively learn from the experience to improve patient experience in the future. …
To the patient who left a negative physician review
An excerpt from The Empathy Effect: Seven Neuroscience-Based Keys for Transforming the Way We Live, Love, Work, and Connect Across Differences.
“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”
What picture do you see when you read this quote from Mother Theresa? Do you see an orphaned child living in poverty? Or, maybe a homeless person begging on …
How to preserve empathy in medicine
“While opposition to the vaccine may be hardening, pediatricians and family physicians enjoy an advantage the CDC and Dr. Fauci may not: namely, they are liked and trusted by patients. In general, parents look to personal physicians for guidance and usually follow their advice on health care for their children. …
How to get patients vaccinated against COVID-19 [PODCAST]
“He’s not even an MD, Jimmy. He’s a DO. This guy can’t even afford the good letters.”
“They’re basically the same, but they’re totally not. MD is Coca-Cola. DO is RC Cola.”
“A DO is like an off-brand doctor.”
These quotes came from Hasan Minaj’s interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. It spread like wildfire through the DO community. This is not the first time that DOs have been belittled by …
Stigma and stereotypes have no place in medicine
“The idea was to try working in Rome for a year and see how it went. This sensible American plan collapsed under the weight of Italian bureaucracy.
Luckily I didn’t investigate every angle before starting off; if I had known the true lay of the land I might not have kept …
An American doctor in Rome [PODCAST]
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has made believers out of us. The statements “I believe in science” and “follow the science” express our collective assurance that scientific innovation will continue to serve humanity and sustain us through our pandemic weariness.
Historically, our scientific pursuits have catalyzed both extraordinary accomplishments and unimaginable atrocities. The line between the two is thin and the guardrails that protect against crossing this line are easily corroded. As a …
“We are not that great.” Gain-of-function research highlights our hubris
“I have no doubt, given my extensive experience in health care and being a Black woman in America, that we as health care professionals have made the same mistakes as Chris Harrison with our patients. Instead of listening to and validating our patients’ concerns, we make excuses for ourselves or …
When it comes to bias, doctors need to do their homework [PODCAST]
It’s been in the news that several telehealth companies are offering patients access to the anti-parasite drug ivermectin, which while rumored by some to be an effective treatment for COVID-19 is unproven. As coronavirus deaths in the United States continue to rise, tracking at over 650,000 deaths to date and hovering around 1,500 each day, we need to remain hopeful, of sound mind. Most importantly, we need caregiving and doctoring …
A prescription against COVID-19: Telehealth and ivermectin
“We have a chance to take a meaningful step in fighting burnout and mental health issues in the health care profession. We have lost too many valued and vibrant health care professionals due to an illness that is treatable but stigmatized – including the devastating loss of Dr. Lorna Breen. …
Dr. Lorna Breen’s lasting legacy [PODCAST]
My seven year old has a favorite tree in our backyard. It is an expansive tree with full branches of lush waxy, dark green leaves, providing the best shade on sunny, cloudless days. When every other mature tree was cut down to build our new neighborhood, it was somehow spared, and left to thrive in our backyard. My daughter lies in the hammock under that tree on hot, summer days …
Our roots are deeply secured and extensive. We hope this storm will pass and not leave us uprooted.
I gleefully rang in 2021, happy to leave 2020 and its troubles behind. However, the promise of the new year did not bring the end of the pandemic or its pressures. As I write this, I am perched on the precipice of another uncertain school year for my children. The surge in work that the pandemic brought has not ebbed either. For doctors, the pandemic has brought unique pressure to …
Earlier this summer, the American Academy of Pediatrics made recommendations that contrasted with those from the CDC, emphasizing the need to do everything possible to prevent COVID infection in children. Specifically, they recommended that even vaccinated adults who were around unvaccinated children in schools continue to mask indoors. This more conservative stance initially caused confusion, but the CDC has since aligned their guidelines more closely with pediatricians. Nevertheless, there remain …
Why pediatricians think about COVID differently
“Five years into my practice as an academic allergist/immunologist, my perceptions continue to evolve. Though once primarily informed by my mentors’ wisdom, I continue incorporating my experiences as both physician and autoimmune patient to guide my practice. Though we all know medicine isn’t like it used to be, nostalgia is …
Burnout and bias? Or medical gaslighting? [PODCAST]
Last week, I became involved in two situations of pain between the eyes that seemed to potentially be presentations of very serious medical conditions.
Autumn took a call from her sister late on Friday afternoon. Her sister had been tested for COVID the day before and told Autumn she instantly felt a severe pain between her eyes and developed a nosebleed as soon as the nasal swabbing was completed. The nosebleed …
The art and uncertainty of triage
The main reason we are seemingly so accepting of lockdowns and vaccine mandates is that we have been conditioned to view a pandemic or an epidemic as a war being waged on our society.
In wartime, we naturally expect civil liberties to be suspended. Likewise, the reasoning goes, during a pandemic we need to act in a unified way under some central command to fight this viral existential threat. Individual rights …
A pandemic is not a war. It’s a natural disaster.
As we orient our brand-new, fresh-faced CA-1 residents to the operating room each year, I ask this question. Has anyone explained to them that much of what they’ll need to learn in the first couple of months is how to be a nurse?
We watch them struggle to draw up propofol into a syringe without spraying white foam all over themselves. We emphasize the critical difference between a surgeon’s order of …
It’s time to redesign anesthesia care delivery
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