I go to medical school with a girl who is universally disliked, perhaps more than anyone I’ve met before. It began innocuously enough: She was too active in the group chat, too pushy about ordering class jackets, this and that.
In lecture, she barked out obscure answers like “Saturday Night Palsy” with physical force; her petite body careening forward in her chair, her class-jacketed hand spearing into the sky. But did …
The dangers of selective empathy
In recent years, the divide between rural and urban areas of the United States has become more pronounced, with sharply divergent views on both social and economic policies. The results of this latest election show starkly that the divide persists, and indicate that the institutions that shape our nation are not successfully representing all portions of society.
One of those institutions appears to be medicine. A sign of this is how the public …
Medicine is failing rural Americans
“Researchers should make clinical trials more accessible by providing patients with simple explanations of studies at a variety of locations, including community clinics and medical centers. Increased flexibility regarding transportation and visit timing is essential. Researchers should also allow the participation of people who do not speak English and those living with …
Medicine must create inclusive clinical trials [PODCAST]
Some of you may have heard it on the playground. Others might have used it in jest. I’m not going to write it. I’m just going to call it the R-word because it’s that disgusting.
It’s a slur against people with intellectual disabilities that you will see peppered in many news stories.
NFL player Janoris Jenkins was cut from the New York Giants for using the word; Khloé Kardashian promised to “do …
The R-word takes away people’s humanity
“We have met the enemy in medical education, and he is us!”
My paraphrase of the “philosophy of Pogo” is pertinent to today’s crop of graduating medical students. We have inserted them into the most toxic environment for learning medicine, ever.
Dr. Michael Halberstam once stated that the most powerful treatment the ER had to offer (after CPR, of course) was “the sight of your own doctor at the bedside.” Yet look …
It’s time to revisit the 4 R’s of the doctor-patient relationship
“I am thankful to you SARS-CoV-2 virus as you allowed me to be human again, to make mistakes, and learn from them. You taught me to slow down so that I could reset and redefine my goals. You allowed me to have time for myself, to dream again, and plan my …
Beyond the medical lessons learned from COVID [PODCAST]
As a physician epidemiologist and former public health official, I’m constantly struck by the sheer amount of disinformation that spreads related to COVID-19. I’ll routinely encounter myths about how masks actually cause viral spread. Or I’ll be told that drinking alcohol or raw, unpasteurized milk combats the virus or that putting hot pepper in food wards off viral illnesses. Meanwhile, conspiracy theories about 5G networks …
Knowledge is power: Why science and health literacy matters
“To care for dependents, the carer must be cared for, both for the sake of her charge and for her own sake. Without such basic infrastructure, we have anxiety, confusion, and chaos.
Contagion knows no independent individuals. Its boundaries are not the boundaries of our skin. It relies on the inevitable sociality of human …
Care is no longer personal. Care is political. [PODCAST]
An excerpt from Medical Myths: A Sceptic’s Journey.
Most people have heard the joke about rabbits and vitamin A: “Are carrots good for your eyesight?”
Well, I never saw a rabbit wearing glasses!
Vitamin A, one of the essential groups of vitamins, is …
The historical medical significance of carrots
Multifaceted diversity continues to be a challenge to achieve in medicine, which is concerning given the irreplaceable value that a diverse community of clinicians provides to research, patient care, and medical education. Current initiatives to expand diversity are centered around academic mentorship models, in which striving to teach more students the life sciences and frontiers of biomedicine as early as elementary or middle school can provide critical exposure and pique …
Unpacking the timely need to address the lack of diversity in medical media
“The first 100 days of COVID made me confront and reflect on a lot of aspects of myself and life, as philosophical as that sounds. Often times, I’m exhausted talking about COVID every single day and frustrated because we should be in a much better place right now as a nation. The …
A medical student’s 100 days of COVID [PODCAST]
Recently, I started suspecting that RT-PCR testing was not foolproof at ruling out COVID disease after seeing a fair number of patients with typical signs and symptoms but a negative PCR. I have encountered some patients hospitalized with typical COVID pattern pneumonia, thromboembolism with multiple negative PCR tests. Some of these folks even had exposure history and the signature hallmarks unique to this virus, like multiple peripheral opacities on CT …
Why COVID PCR tests aren’t as accurate as you think
As communities of color continue to be disproportionately decimated by COVID-19 and the brutal impact of racism and other longstanding systemic inequalities, academic medicine finds itself at a critical inflection point in defining its role in addressing social injustices not only for its patients but also for its academic workforce. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, many medical schools and teaching hospitals released statements condemning racial injustice and vowed …
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“The flu vaccine can strengthen your immune system, prevent the disease spread among those closest to you, protect your children, and reduce the health care system’s burden. Protecting ourselves and others as we traverse a pandemic is paramount in saving lives and keeping our communities safe and healthy. Along with our ongoing …
Why flu vaccines are more important than ever in this pandemic [PODCAST]
“We have to start understanding these as the real costs of climate change. We are paying these costs now. In my state of Oregon, people are going to start getting sick and dying in the next few days of the wildfire smoke choking the air. When they show up to the hospital …
Climate change, cardiac arrest, and the price of inaction [PODCAST]
“As we get excited about vaccine news and results, we need to evaluate our messaging and how we can get to high enough COVID-19 vaccination rates to achieve herd immunity. This requires broad and frequent education on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. It also requires active listening to address concerns …
COVID-19 vaccines: Channeling the 7 habits to get from vaccines to vaccinations [PODCAST]
COVID-19 has turned the world on its head. A major problem we have faced since the beginning is that it had already been spreading like wildfire for a few months since the end of 2019 — before most of the world realized that it was time to take action against this respiratory virus. We’ve therefore been on the back foot from the very start.
The blunt truth on why stopping COVID is impossible
Health care has been hanging by a thread for some time — in our community and across the nation. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses inherent in an underfunded public health system, a monopolized hospital, and a fractured medical supply chain.
At the beginning of this pandemic, I wrote, “Our lives will not be saved by the government. And lives will not be saved by elected officials or large institutions. Lives will …
Is there hope for COVID with home visits?
“Growing up in Puerto Rico, ‘babas’ (bottles: biberón/botellas) and ‘bobos’ (pacifiers: chupetes/chupón) were very common among the families and children of the island. I still remember our Abuelita giving us milk in our “babas,” so my younger sister and I were sure to fall asleep better. From the time of our births, …
Bottles and pacifiers: advice from a Latinx pediatrician [PODCAST]
On those brisk walks across the hospital, I briefly look over at the instillations from local artists. Those pieces ignite a chain reaction of creative empathy and even critique from both patient and provider alike. In the briefest moment, we mentally collide into the artist’s creation, catching glimpses of their point of view. The result is our engagement in the vital need for our own creativity.
Hospital art fosters a welcoming, …
Creativity in medical school and beyond
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