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With COVID-19, a need to deregulate buprenorphine prescriptions [PODCAST]

Podcast

August 15, 2020

“With COVID-19, we have both the unique opportunity and need to deregulate buprenorphine prescriptions. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAHMSA) recently updated guidelines for buprenorphine prescriptions. There are new provisions for telephonic initiation of buprenorphine and scripts up to 28 days for stable patients. Unfortunately, this does not circumvent the major issue: redeployed providers will not be able …

4 ways to decrease your dread of being on-call

Katie Townes, DO

Physician

August 15, 2020

Have you ever been faced with an upcoming shift at work and felt an impending sense of doom? This type of anticipation can be a real killjoy. However, taking calls, working nights, weekends, and holidays is all part of the job, right?

Worst. Call. Ever.

I was just drifting off, entering the first phase of sleep when the whole body is relaxed, and you’ve entered that sweet twilight zone. …

What happens if you are both too rich and too poor for health insurance?

Vincent Fussell, MD

Policy

August 15, 2020

After being kept up all night responding to pages, I was still half-asleep walking into Mr. Jenkins’ room for what I thought would be a routine early morning admission for new-onset seizures. From scanning through the electronic medical record, I was not expecting to encounter the unfortunate and complex array of social factors underlying his condition.

Mr. Jenkins was in his late 20s and had three children to take care of. …

Medical education and engaging children in wearing masks [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

August 14, 2020

“Children are being encouraged to take on the superhero persona and help protect others. They do this in true average-person-as-the-superhero style by wearing a facemask alone, without any superhero powers or words. Just as wearing a facemask in public has been the norm for years in many Asian countries, it may become the norm worldwide. For this to happen, we need …

Imposter syndrome and COVID: a medical student perspective

Kimia Zarabian and Mai Hasan

Education

August 14, 2020

Shifting nervously in our seats amongst 180 of our fellow medical school classmates, we focused in on the front of the lecture hall as our deans began their annual orientation address. “Each of you has worked so hard to get here. No one has gotten to this point by mistake. But also be wary that each and every one of you will experience imposter syndrome during your time here. Everyone …

Palliative care during the pandemic [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

August 13, 2020

“We are health care workers. We are doctors, advanced care practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and so much more. We are on the frontlines. We are our parents’ children, and we are parents to our young children. For the first time, we are at an extremely high risk of being quarantined by the same beast we are trying to conquer. We …

Without cadavers in school, will doctors be the same?

Christopher Watson, MD

Education

August 13, 2020

The Kaiser Permanente’s Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine opened this summer, and its students will not learn anatomy by dissecting a cadaver. Instead, they will don virtual reality headsets and dissect virtual bodies. The school does have a collection of pre-dissected, “plastinated” cadavers, but according to the chair of biomedical sciences students will spend the majority of their time studying electronic …

The benefits of taking more time away from work far outweigh the consequences

James Turner, MD

Finance

August 13, 2020

Around 50 percent of physicians are burned out, and many feel trapped in their job. Yet, I have heard it countless times from doctors who were able to cut back to part-time work that when they had more time away from work, they fell back in love with medicine. Moderation in all things seems to be key here, and I’ve experienced some of that lately myself after a really hard …

Coronavirus exposes income-driven health inequality [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

August 12, 2020

“It’s maddening to see the differences in health outcomes between the rich and the poor. Even more unsettling is reflecting upon the psychological pain accumulated when living in a fad-obsessed materialistic comparison-creating society, the postponed dreams, and the day to day compromise that those with less have to endure – thoughts that may be far removed from the ruminations of the …

Lifelong learning through skillful self-reflection

Priti Golechha, MD

Physician

August 12, 2020

The dictionary definition of learning is “the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught.” For leaders, the most crucial and common way of learning happens through experience, and as we often say, leadership is flying the plane while building it. Moreover, the onus of making the process of learning an active one is on the leader, and self-reflection is the key to it.

So, what’s self-reflection? …

How to manage pandemic anxiety [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

August 11, 2020

“Since the coronavirus outbreak, reports of anxiety have increased, especially among physicians. Physicians face numerous stressors, including fears of contracting the coronavirus, concerns about potentially infecting loved ones, PPE shortages, testing delays, and frequently making quick decisions with limited information.

Common symptoms of anxiety are increased worrying about one’s self and/or loved ones, difficulty sleeping, difficulty eating, poor concentration, increased heart rate, …

Fascia in primary care: When chest pain is not in your chest

Cathy Kim, MD

Conditions

August 11, 2020

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
– Albert Einstein

“Mr. Thomas, are you OK? Sir, are you OK?” It was a full clinic day, and I had just improvised a treatment on him.

I had met this patient, “Mr. Thomas,” only once before. After meeting me …

3 ways the wealthy increase their net worth

Altelisha Taylor, MD, MPH

Finance

August 11, 2020

While the coronavirus pandemic has created financial strain for a lot of low-income and middle-class Americans, many wealthy people don’t seem to be as affected. The stock market is doing relatively well, and many of the world’s richest people are getting even richer. How is that even possible, you may ask? Here are three main reasons the rich are getting richer.

1. They create their own business. Instead of having a …

Doctors: Never pass judgment on the human being in front of you needing help

Suneel Dhand, MD

Physician

August 11, 2020

Oh, how we all learn and change with our experiences. It’s one of the greatest things in life that most of us (hopefully) are not the same person now that we were a few years ago. Looking back to when I first become a physician at the age of 22 (yes, that’s the typical age that most medical students across the world become doctors, because medical school comes straight after …

Gender inequities and being a physician-mom [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

August 10, 2020

“As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds day by day at an exponential rate, we as doctors have been called to duty in unprecedented ways. Speak with any physician in the last few weeks, and you will be hard-pressed to find one who didn’t feel an intrinsic obligation- indeed, wish- to rise to the occasion with an all-hands-on-deck attitude, despite the taxing and …

Personal development and growth during COVID times

Francis Yoo, DO

Physician

August 10, 2020

As a physician and proponent of introspection, inner work, and self-awareness as integral components of health, wellness, and spiritual development. I watched with intrigue the dramatic increase in the number of COVID-19 related articles, social media posts, and videos purporting to offer solutions for these troubled times. They professed to teach people how to fight fear, manage anxiety, cope with grief, and/or overcome unpleasant emotions. This onslaught reflected a pervasive …

Doctors are fleeing the medical field. Here’s why.

Anna Gladstone, DO

Physician

August 10, 2020

The first day I started work as an attending physician in primary care medicine, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. This was not the heroic, selfless, service-oriented job or the romantic life “as seen on TV” I had imagined.

Riddled with heavy school debt, despite my best efforts to join debt relief programs, I had a frustrating job with nothing but red tape and hurdles to jump over. And …

Flattening the curve of COVID’s emotional impact [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

August 9, 2020

“Based on the evidence of the effects of trauma, we can predict that our health care teams, patients and families will exhibit signs of this assault through a variety of symptoms–sleeplessness, apathy, depression, and anxiety. The warning signs are already here. We read the desperate accounts and pleas of frontline workers describing the indescribable, holding the hands of patients dying alone, …

A screenwriting dermatologist shares the importance of creativity in medicine [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

August 8, 2020

“Someday, I suspect I will recount this time of fear with mixed emotions. Sadly, there are people who have died and more to come, and this time will also lead us to reassess our way of life and make changes for the better. I work from home, juggling the management of patients by telemedicine with homeschooling my daughters, still working to …

The future of whole-person care: high-tech holistic medicine

Trisha Swift, DNP, RN

Tech

August 8, 2020

When we think about holistic medicine, many assume that it requires human-to-human touch points and, therefore, doesn’t lend itself well to technology and innovations such as artificial intelligence. In fact, holistic medicine and whole-person care advocates often view technology as manufactured or impersonal and therefore dismiss its utility for health care. This is because there is a perception that health care tech values the human experience only for the purpose …

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