It was Friday night, and after a long day of grossing, I was ready to leave the hospital when the department’s door opened, and the nurse shouted, “we have a frozen for an emergency liver transplant.” Without hesitation, I took the specimen and called the attending on call. After a few minutes, the surgeon arrived anxiously to our reading room. “We flew all the way from Pennsylvania to get this …
This week at work, I had a patient in the hospital who had been through a pretty challenging illness, and he was going to have to be discharged to a skilled nursing facility (SNF) to rehab for a few weeks. Sadly, SNFs in my area do not currently allow any visitors due to the pandemic. The patient is very close to his daughter, who lives out of state, and she …
A real-life example of irrational health care spending
“I am overwhelmed right now. I know I am not alone. I hear it in the voices of my friends, family, colleagues, patients. We are all feeling it.
I am overwhelmed by this virus. There is so much to learn, so much to teach. Every day the information changes. Who is credible? Who …
This physician is overwhelmed. She is not alone. [PODCAST]
“Each year, medical students across the country prepare to start the long-anticipated core clinical rotations. Suddenly, we’re thrust into a world of constant adaptation and evaluation, with many highs and many lows.
As I finish up the year and new students get ready to start, I’ve been asked time and time again for …
Tips for medical students starting their clinical rotations [PODCAST]
“Doctor, how are you doing?”
I’m really so grateful when people take the time to ask this. But when I respond, candidly, that it’s been tough and I’m definitely not doing great, I often hear, “But you haven’t had any patients who have died from COVID, have you? And you got the vaccine, didn’t you?” Fortunately, no (not yet) and yes.
My heart goes out to our ICU, inpatient, and ER teams …
As a busy primary care doctor, here is what I am facing
Being an internist, the day is filled with problem-solving. The problems are often not straightforward and require thinking, rethinking, reevaluating, and reading up and researching before the problem can be solved. However, when a sixth sense, an intuition kicks in that warns us that something needs to be addressed urgently even when we cannot specify or articulate why.
Once I had a patient come in for shortness of breath that is …
The adaptive unconscious, the physician, and AI
“We in medicine are experts in delayed gratification. We’ve been in school for what, about 21 years before residency? Then we finally become an attending. Then we can splurge a little. But still, we were told to hold back. Live like a resident.
This is a great skill to have as an entrepreneur. …
Do doctors make great entrepreneurs? [PODCAST]
She was rather calm during her visit. It was the first time we’d met, and she was establishing primary care with our office and me. We were both delighted to learn she was from a small Georgia town not too far from where I previously practiced, and we quickly reminisced about the slow pace, lack of certain resources, and genuinely good, devout people that often stem from and still reside …
The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic are eternal
Dear colleague,
Sorry for my delayed response. I didn’t know if I was going to follow up with you on this issue. When you initially messaged on LinkedIn, on New Year’s Eve, I was holding my daughter. She’s five, and she was desperately trying to stay awake for the ball drop. She was determined to ring in the New Year. Which, unfortunately for me, meant that I had to keep my …
When a colleague asks you for nude photos
Sometimes structural racism surfaces in a way that even those of us who would like to be “color-blind” cannot help but see.
In the spring of 2020, the video-recorded death of George Floyd (who was Black) at the hands of a law enforcement officer (who was white) brought millions of witnesses to the kind of hostility that is all-too-familiar to individuals of color. Individuals, many non-white, took to our nation’s capital …
It is not enough to say we are anti-racist. We must address glaring disparities in treatment.
Experts have taken to social media to quell misinformation and address common concerns about Pfizer’s messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine, performing an important public service in support of robust vaccine uptake. However, some scientific information is being oversimplified to the point that it is misleading. The public’s decision to take a vaccine whose long-term risks are unclear should be a well-informed one. Clear communication is crucial to the process of …
Upholding the principles of informed consent in the fight against vaccine hesitancy
“What has become of medicine today? What has become of the sacred patient-physician relationship? What has become of medical offices- aren’t they supposed to be healing places? Who goes to a medical clinic (no matter how Big the Name) to be insulted and diminished and hurt? What has become of physicians as …
A crisis of physician intra-professional respect [PODCAST]
Introduction
Today, I had my second shot of the Pfizer vaccine and suffered an unexpected and unreported side effect. That’s the problem with a new medical treatment; you never know what might happen.
Transformation
Just a few seconds after the needle penetrated my arm, I felt a mild soreness, kind of like a flu shot. But as I sat for the required 15 minutes of observation time, a wave of something engulfed my …
An unexpected COVID-19 vaccine side effect
“I plan to reach out to climate organizations and see what I can do to get involved. Whether that means writing more op-eds like this one or writing to legislators, I now recognize that as part of the medical field, especially in regard to mental health, I have a role to play. …
Dear medical community, it’s time to engage in the climate movement [PODCAST]
I write this now as both a time capsule and a vision of hope at the bitter end of 2020. At this point, a COVID-19 vaccine (the vision of hope) has been developed by several companies but has not yet received widespread distribution. Realistically, I know we are in for more quarantines, social distancing, and mask-wearing for at least another 9 to 12 months (sorry!).
My clinical work in psychiatry has …
COVID malaise, and more COVID-19 coping tips from the trenches
“We must continue to work to create gender equity as here is where we stand today: A significant gender pay gap still exists in medicine where women doctors earn up to 33% less than their male counterparts. Even though women make up 36% of practicing doctors in the country, only 15% of …
Women physicians and pivoting from medicine [PODCAST]
When the pandemic hit the U.S. – we were caught off guard. We were uncertain about how COVID-19 spread or how it killed. But amidst the chaos, health care providers have learned how to better care for infected patients today. Since March, we’ve learned that surprisingly simple actions can make a significant difference in both containing COVID-19 and improving patient outcomes.
For example, we now know mask-wearing, social distancing, and limiting …
Reducing death from COVID-19 pneumonia before widespread vaccination
“I recently represented a physician in a noteworthy peer review case at an academic medical center. The medical staff president initiated a complaint against a surgeon, who would later become my client. The complaint was that the surgeon inappropriately collected cash payment from an uninsured patient at the hospital’s point of …
How this surgeon beat a medical staff disciplinary action [PODCAST]
On March 2nd, 2020, as New York State announced its first proven case of COVID-19, a federal court there handed down a stunning decision. For 10 years, according to the court, the United States government illegally failed to hold drug companies accountable when they did not report, or inaccurately reported, crucial data about their drugs’ safety and efficacy.
Between 2007 and 2017, the court held, the Food …
How transparent were the COVID vaccine trials?
“The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated factors that cause violence in the workplace. At no time in recent history will you find clinical health care workers under this degree of stress. Physicians and nurses are operating under high alert in hospitals and clinics while facing COVID deniers and abusive treatment (name-calling such …
When an epidemic of violence against health care workers meets a pandemic [PODCAST]
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