The risks of co-signing PA and NP charts

Physician
November 13, 2018

We all know that there’s a remarkable shortage of physicians in America and that it’s growing worse.  This is especially true in primary care but it’s present across all specialties.  This shortage alone is a significant stress on practicing physicians.  But when it is coupled with corporatization, the increasing complexity of medical care, unrelenting electronic charting requirements and the explosion of administrative tasks, physicians barely keep up each day.

This is one of the …

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Meet the physician who became a financial advisor

Finance
November 13, 2018

If you can’t beat ’em, join them (and make it better).  Am I right?  This was some of the sentiment I felt as I registered with FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) to take the Series 65 exam.  Passing this exam will allow me to register in my state as an Independent Advisory Representative (IAR) and function as a financial advisor.   This begs the question: Why should I become a financial …

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Doctors overcorrect too often

Physician
November 12, 2018

Back when cholesterol target numbers ruled unopposed (before 2013), we all checked fasting lipids every three months. Before 2012, we also checked liver function quarterly in hapless riders on the cholesterol pill merry-go-round. That year the FDA announced there had not been enough reports of statin-induced liver problems to recommend routine monitoring.

I have many colleagues who still do this, and who also routinely monitor routine labs quarterly …

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8 tips to land the residency of your dreams

Education
November 9, 2018

After countless hours of hard work and three demanding years of medical school, it’s now time to face the spotlight! If your interview invites have started rolling in and you are feeling intimidated by the thought, follow these tips to land your first choice of clinical residency.

1. Be prompt with your responses to interview invites 

Be sure to set your inbox to automatically refresh every hour during the interview season so you …

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The main difference between functional medicine and evidence-based medicine

Physician
November 8, 2018

Figuring out what’s actually true is far harder than most people realize. Our brains are both hypothesis-generating machines and incredibly credulous. As a result, most of the things we believe to be true turn out to be false. We don’t just mistakenly believe that vaccines cause autism, that the flu shot can give us the flu, and that astrology can predict our future. We also mistakenly believe that the salad …

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How do health insurance companies harm patients?

Physician
November 7, 2018

Health care policy has been a hotly debated political topic for many years now. In recent years, new laws passed the halls of Congress while others failed to gain any traction. Despite the rules that have rolled out, health insurance companies have been in the driver’s seat for decades.

While spokespersons for the health insurance industry will tell you that they do not make medical decisions. As a doctor, I can …

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Here’s what the third year of medical school taught me

Education
November 5, 2018

The dawn of 2018 brought new hopes and new promises for me as I began the third year of my medical school journey. This marked the beginning of a challenging era, one that would test my capabilities to the fullest but also one that was the culmination of countless sacrifices and the fulfillment of years of yearning. After all, this was what I had come to medical school for.

Third year …

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What kind of extracurricular activities do medical schools look for?

Education
November 5, 2018

Preparing for medical school demands displaying your passion for both medicine and helping others. Like medical schools, other graduate school programs (think: business or law) require strong grades, test scores, leadership experience, and resumes. But medical school requires so much more than that. Good extracurricular activities for medical school are a particularly important part of the application process.

Through your application — personal statement, AMCAS experience list, secondaries, and interviews — you must …

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3 ways physician-pharma partnerships are improving quality of care

Meds
November 4, 2018

We’ve all heard about the importance of greater stakeholder collaboration in health care. It’s the premise of current movements aimed at improving the outlook on some of the most costly, chronic conditions.

Like most physicians today, I maintain a tight work schedule to keep bottom-line margins in the black. On a daily basis, I see between 25 and 30 patients while also serving as the medical director of employee health for …

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When Western medicine fails patients and clinicians

Meds
November 3, 2018

It’s a common scenario: a patient shows up to my office lugging a bagful of over-the-counter supplements, defiantly informing me that they “don’t believe in prescription drugs.” In the very next breath, they present a lab slip with a list of bloodwork that their alternative medicine doctor wants me to order to help diagnose their myriad symptoms.

I’ll admit, my initial natural reaction in this situation was a feeling of annoyance …

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MKSAP: 79-year-old man with a sacral ulcer

Conditions
November 3, 2018

Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.

A 79-year-old man is evaluated for pain in the buttocks region. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin large B-cell lymphoma 6 months ago. Although his lymphoma has responded well to therapy and he is without evidence of active disease, he required hospitalization three times for chemotherapy-associated complications during his treatment course. He has been …

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It’s time we start voting at our local hospitals

Policy
November 2, 2018

Early voting began recently in Texas with unprecedented excitement, as a record 15 million registered voters made their way to the polls. Reports say polls are looking more like Black Friday shopping lines than early voting locations. Although we cannot predict the results of the election, one thing is clear: healthcare is the top issue. This is hardly surprising given …

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Being a physician was never the objective. The goal was becoming one.

Education
November 2, 2018

There is a saying among students that medical education is like “taking a drink out of a fire hydrant.” The simile evokes the torrent of information and the impossibility of taking it all in.

The type of people who are admitted to medical school aren’t used to being wrong; to call them perfectionists wouldn’t be too far from the truth. Many secured a seat in medical school because they had made …

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Why medical students should not let medicine define them

Education
October 31, 2018

Sanjay Gupta. John Locke. Jill Stein. Charles Krauthammer. What do they all have in common?

If you guessed that they are all physicians, then you’re right.

Less salient, however, is the fact that all of them pursued passions outside of medicine. (Dr. Gupta is an Emmy Award-winning medical reporter. John Locke was a physician-philosopher. Stein and Krauthammer both made their mark in politics.) In doing so, they avoided an existential trap that …

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You shouldn’t worry about public service loan forgiveness

Finance
October 31, 2018

Anger. Jealousy. Envy. Frustration. I was feeling all the emotions when NYU announced in August that their incoming and subsequent classes would be tuition-free into perpetuity. One consolation: at least I wasn’t one of the chronologically unfortunate that graduated from the school just months, or a year, before that announcement. For them, the time difference was small, but the difference in loans was vast — one year of tuition costs …

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5 lessons on doing research as a resident

Physician
October 29, 2018

I remember sitting in my residency academic adviser’s office as I was discussing the plans I had designed for my community project at the end of my intern year. I can only imagine what she thought as I looked at her with a blank stare when she had suggested I should create an original research project around this. “What?” was all I had managed to mumble out of my mouth. …

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The gift of suffering in medicine

Physician
October 29, 2018

“There will always be suffering. It flows through life like water …”

Those famous lyrics sung by Nick Cave in his Lime-Tree Arbour ring true for many of us. They take on an entirely different layer of meaning for physicians.

Even the very journey of becoming a physician is marked by suffering. While many of our classmates frequented football games, nightclubs, and social events, most of us were studying day and night …

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