How COVID accelerates change: Bridging business principles with emergency medicine

Conditions
January 27, 2021

Over the past year, we have experienced massive organizational change at an unprecedented pace. Traditionally, we could spend weeks planning how to best make a change in our workplaces, but COVID-19 was anything but traditional. Our emergency department at Saint Barnabas Health System in Bronx, NY, needed to pivot on a daily and even hourly basis, and to do so took planning and effort. In general, change is difficult, and …

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14 tips when negotiating a physician job

Physician
January 27, 2021

Negotiations are not just for the job interview and annual review. We negotiate every day. Negotiating in place can be a powerful mechanism to make your current job a better fit.

The key to effective negotiations is to think like the boss. What are her concerns, goals, and interests? How can you align your goals with those of the boss and institution so that everyone wins?

At every point where you are …

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Are we underestimating the danger of prions and prion based diseases?

Conditions
January 27, 2021

Assessment without definition: a flat tire on the road of progress

Even though we have known about prions for decades, very little progress has been made in defining what a prion is vs. what a prion is not, how they get into the brain, and how prion diseases are different from other neurodegenerative diseases. Phenomenologically these definitions can vary widely. To some, a prion causes a deadly, …

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Why medical students should not let medicine define them [PODCAST]

Podcast
January 26, 2021
YouTube video

“Doctors are indeed noble for what they do. Their work is undoubtedly physically intense and emotionally taxing. But the notion that they are ‘superhuman’ and ‘different’ from the rest of society is exactly the trap that we fall into the moment we don our white coats as medical students. It is because …

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Marijuana legalization: an unpopular view

Conditions
January 26, 2021

In the mid-1990s, a few pharmaceutical companies made broad claims regarding the safety and efficacy of opioid medications for pain management. These claims were based on limited research that did not fully account for these drugs’ potentially harmful effects. As a result, we are now facing an opioid epidemic across the United States.

Now, New Jersey joined several other states by legalizing marijuana for recreational use. While there are clear differences …

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Is my headache coming from my soul?

Conditions
January 26, 2021

Serious soul searching can give anybody a headache, but when a young woman asked me that, I was taken aback in my neurosurgery clinic. Huh? I said. Do you know René Descartes? The pineal gland is the “seat of the soul.” Well, my pineal gland has a cyst and is more like the “seat of my misery.” It turns out this eloquent young woman in her early 20s was a …

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I keep going because I miss them. And I miss me.

Physician
January 26, 2021

I have written a lot about how COVID has changed me. Changed medicine. Changed America.  I have written about it as a pivot point.  A way to build a better medical infrastructure.  I have alluded to how we can use innovation, advocacy, and listening to turn 2020 into an opportunity for change.  How we can use it as a way to finally admit that health disparities exist, Black Lives Matter, …

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A medical student’s story of racism and bias [PODCAST]

Podcast
January 25, 2021
YouTube video

“I am left wondering what would have happened if I was the patient’s daughter, niece (who she said I reminded her of), or friend. The nurse made a quick judgment based on my physical characteristics, and she was completely incorrect. I am blessed to be able to challenge people’s implicit bias on …

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Lessons learned from a combat doctor in Iraq [PODCAST]

Podcast
January 24, 2021
YouTube video

“My own dream-induced pain started at the same time this child was mowed down. Then and there is when and where my faith in God died because God, the higher power, had allowed this unspeakable nightmare to happen. My hope for the future evaporated, all while helplessness chewed through my guts …

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Physicians are an underserved population about their own mental health care

Conditions
January 24, 2021

COVID-19 has shed light on a pre-existing condition in medicine – our health care system has failed to tend to its workforce’s well-being. While generally privileged, physicians are an underserved population about their own mental health care.

Numerous articles and countless interviews have focused on the pandemic’s deleterious impact on physicians’ mental health and well-being. But this is not a new problem, nor is it caused by a lack of resilience. …

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How health care organizations can tackle racism in patient care [PODCAST]

Podcast
January 23, 2021
YouTube video

“The new American Medical Association policy recognizing racism as a public health threat and providing an anti-racist approach to equitable care will have no effectiveness unless health care organizations get their own houses in order and actively do anti-racism work in their own institutions.

Although I’m not a health care provider, as a …

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When selecting a specialty, it’s OK to choose happiness

Education
January 23, 2021

I began pursuing a career in medicine with the fervent desire to become a neurosurgeon one day. When someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered neurosurgeon without missing a beat. I chose neurosurgery in high school after falling in love with the nervous system and watching Gifted Hands. I wanted to be like Dr. Ben Carson before his political debut. At that point, …

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Extreme athleticism and the risk of atrial fibrillation

Conditions
January 23, 2021

Consider the following sports icons:  tennis legend Billie Jean King, basketball veteran Larry Bird, triathlete Karsten Madsen, baseball pitcher Kenley Jansen, and cyclist champion Haimar Zubeldia.

What do all of these well-known professional athlete heroes have in common? They are athletes with atrial fibrillation, also called AFib. AFib is the most common heart rhythm disorder worldwide, accounting for 750,000 hospitalizations per year in the US alone. It is estimated that 6 …

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Why do people keep going to church?

Physician
January 23, 2021

Physicians in general are a pretty intelligent group of professionals. However, we sometimes make the mistake of thinking that we must also know a lot about almost everything because we know a lot about one particular thing. However, given the exploding pace of advancing knowledge, that idea is hubristic. But it isn’t just science and technology where we fall short.

During the COVID pandemic, one of the things most contentious has …

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How to (almost) never have a bad shift [PODCAST]

Podcast
January 22, 2021
YouTube video

“To understand how to create good shifts irrespective of external factors, I turned to the ancient philosophy of Stoicism. One of its core tenets is that we must focus on what is within our control. Epictetus said: ‘Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are …

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COVID vaccines: side effects, myths, and madness

Conditions
January 22, 2021

I received my COVID vaccine on December 21st before starting an ER shift; sitting in the cold, plastic chair in a hallway-turned-vaccine-clinic, I tipped my head back to blink tears into submission as I reflected on making it this far in the pandemic without contracting COVID.  Four days later, after three twelve-hour shifts, I tested positive for COVID.

The COVID vaccine did not cause my positive result; getting exposed …

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Unmasking inequality: the power of community organization during COVID-19 [PODCAST]

Podcast
January 21, 2021
YouTube video

“Touted by some as a ‘great equalizer,’ the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront long-standing disparities in access to health for Black, Latinx, immigrant, and low-income communities. While we are all in this fight together, some are bearing the burden more than others. Studies have shown that Blacks in the …

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