Chiefs, remember, one of those interns is going to fill your shoes in a few years. They may model you in that role, so you want to raise them well! As a former chief resident, I have lots of pearls for those entering residency. However, what I will tell you now is different from what I would have told you then. I have since learned that there are possibilities to …
A word of advice from one chief resident to another
“Doctors undergo mandatory training sessions in medical school to prepare for unexpected medical emergencies. Health care workers are mandated reporters who have to undergo specific training for the purpose of identifying child and elder abuse or neglect. Bystander intervention should also be on that continuum of responsibility and training.
I urge bystander intervention …
Anti-Asian racism and how bystander intervention training can save a life [PODCAST]
“The FDA recommended an updated boxed warning and standardization of product labels across the drug class. They recommended judicious prescribing and a gradual taper to mitigate withdrawal reactions. While I am optimistic about these changes, the updated warning doesn’t tell the whole story. After reviewing the newly updated Xanax Medication Guide, I …
What you need to know about the updated benzodiazepine boxed warning [PODCAST]
An excerpt from An Eschatological Isolation.
At 12:11 p.m., the overhead speaker announced: “Code Blue, Three West.” She repeated, “Code Blue, Three West.”
Shit. I started my stopwatch and saved the patient note I was writing in the back office of Three West, the intensive care unit of a community hospital in Tampa Bay. Already wearing a sealed N95 mask, …
A morning code blue for a COVID patient
“This is a message to any medical doctor who is unhappy with their career. The individual reasons for this dissatisfaction will vary. Whatever the issue, it is important to ask, ‘Is the problem correctable?’ If yes, then you must act and secure your happiness. If no, you must consider other options. One …
A message to medical doctors who are unhappy with their careers [PODCAST]
I had just received a call that I had been accepted to medical school, and I had immediately pulled up a Google search: “best time to have children in medical training?” I was certain that this was not how most people celebrated news of their acceptance to medical school, but this was a priority for me. A quick scan of the results of my Google search was clear, “Don’t do …
So, are you committed to medicine — or your baby?
In any industry, there will always be unhappy customers. Having a formalized method of dealing with complaints is absolutely necessary to protect consumers and patients. What isn’t discussed enough is the severity of these complaints’ psychological repercussions on physicians and other medical providers.
Most providers spend years of their lives in school, sacrificing family plans, social events, and sometimes their own well-being, all on a mission to care for others. Despite …
The psychological repercussions of patient complaints
The health care crisis is a difficult one to face. Health care budgets have skyrocketed, and rates of chronic illnesses have increased much faster than before. As physician leaders, what if we each took personal responsibility for the crisis? Perhaps it all boils down to how many people trained in health care know what is necessary for living healthy lifestyles. Yet, that knowledge often doesn’t materialize in excellent health outcomes. …
A holistic approach to health and wellness requires openness and vulnerability
“American medicine is facing an identity crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic brought renewed attention to socioeconomic health disparities and turned up the heat on the question of whether health care is a right or a privilege. The financial strain on hospitals resulting from the temporary postponement of scheduled surgeries exposed a vulnerability caused …
Is health care a right or privilege? The economic consequences of that answer. [PODCAST]
Before I walk into clinic, I already know their response if I submitted my resignation letter today.
I hear it monthly from multiple patients who have no reason to believe I’m leaving: “You aren’t going to leave too, are you?” “It took us years to get here after the last doctor left.” “Please promise me if you move on, you will let me know where you go.”
They have baseline trauma from …
A resignation letter to my patients: How do I leave you well?
“Before COVID-19, clinical research was a little-known part of health care. Despite this process being responsible for determining the safety and efficacy of all the drugs, medical devices, vaccines, and other medical therapies available, less than 5 percent of the U.S. population actually participates in clinical research.
One reason why clinical research has …
What clinicians need to know about clinical trials [PODCAST]
Own it.
People sometimes say, “Own it.” Own your mistake. We use it less frequently to say own reactions or actions instead of blaming others and external forces for our actions. Life coaches call it being in a state of “emotional childhood.” It means that instead of saying you are responsible for your thoughts, feelings, and actions, you blame others for these.
“The situation is bad.”
“I am angry because it is not …
Stop blaming others. You need to own your actions.
I am sitting in hot springs deep in the dark and crisp air woods – naked. It has been a day of lectures and workshops at a retreat with my fellow physicians. We are all naked in the effervescent, warm bubbles of the springs. In the dark, I can recognize who people are by the fluorescent necklace each wears. You know, the kind that you crunch and shake to activate …
The profound experience of being naked with other doctors
“I have a form of genetic primary immunodeficiency and several heart issues, among other things. I know that I need to be far more vigilant than someone with a fully armed and operational immune system, so I try to take as much responsibility for that as I can.
First tactic: Not going out …
Medical facilities: Please keep your immune-deficient patients safe [PODCAST]
When plastic surgeon Dr. Robert Pearl published his Los Angeles Times op-ed, “How Doctor Culture Sinks U.S. Healthcare,” a polemic essay critical of primary care physicians like me, he set off a firestorm. While he made some valid points, Dr. Pearl also blamed many of the preventative health failures in the U.S. squarely on the shoulders of primary care physicians without acknowledging that our health care …
The unfair blame on primary care physicians
My phone rings.
“Namaskar! My cough is really bothering me. What should I do?” says a middle-aged man.
“Namaskar! I am Astha Prasai. I am here to help you. Please bear with me while I ask you your problem in detail,” I answer.
Mr. Kafle from Kathmandu is worried about this nagging cough he has, and it has been a month since he has tested positive for COVID- 19. After talking to him …
Telemedicine in Nepal during COVID-19
“For thousands of generations, parents, relatives, and the extended community raised and prepared children to become successful adults, to acquire knowledge, and strengthen the abilities needed to meet the challenges of their time. How did they do it? Until relatively recent times in human history there were no schools or organized institutions, …
How to raise tenacious and resilient children [PODCAST]
“When I was diagnosed as gene-positive for HD, just over ten years ago, there wasn’t anything promising on the horizon in terms of a cure. It has only been since new clinical trials were announced in the past few years that I have allowed myself to feel a tiny bit of …
Huntington’s disease and a patient’s perspective on genetic testing [PODCAST]
Even though I completed residency almost 15 years ago, it is easy to remember the dread I experienced before taking hospital call. The sinking feeling in my stomach as the call date loomed near, the hypervigilance and terror every time my beeper went off in the middle of the night, the fear of imagined catastrophes that would by necessity be my fault.
My anticipation of call was usually worse than reality. …
Physicians: Stop dreading call
July 1 is a day that marks the new era when student truly becomes doctor, where hundreds of residency programs start day one of the three-year or longer residency, a life-changing rite of passage. Where the initial hours start the tens of thousands of hours of experiential full immersion training. Looking back, intern year was one of the hardest years of my training and definitely one of the hardest years …
Reflections from a former intern
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