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Pediatrician Wendy Schofer discusses her article, “Why food perfectionism harms parents.” Wendy explains how the intense worry over family eating habits and ultraprocessed foods is often a symptom of a deeper issue: …
A pediatrician explains the real danger of food perfectionism [PODCAST]
Keeping my head down and working through intern year was all I had known. My days blurred into nights, and my weeks into months. The dreary Pacific Northwest winters had only compounded this. Despite a quiet yearning for connection and community, I declined most social invitations. My sense of obligation did not end at the hospital doors. It followed me home, where expectations and emotional responsibilities lingered. I often felt …
Divorced during residency: a story of clarity
Last winter, a senior nurse in our psychiatric unit told me, “The dashboard says we’re low-risk. But during night shifts, I don’t even feel safe walking to the bathroom.”
The monthly quality report on her desk said the same thing it had said for nearly a year: “Violence incidents: no significant difference among the three wards (p > .05).”
On paper, her ward looked normal. At the bedside, it was anything but.
Her …
Medical statistics errors: How bad data hurts clinicians
The recent Atlantic article by Olga Khazan, “Avoiding Ultraprocessed Foods is Completely Unrealistic. Especially if you have kids,” brought a concern that I’ve carried for a long time into full clarity: Our worries about family weight and eating habits aren’t actually about the physical body. They’re about perfection. And they are a call to approach health completely differently.
I am a pediatrician working at the intersection of family stress, emotional …
Why food perfectionism harms parents
The British tend to use the term “carer” for the people who help other persons with needs. It seems to emphasize its root word, care, with implications for family members, volunteer helpers, and professionals who fill that role. The American term tends to be “caregiver;” its usage has become more common.
Even when I worked in health care, I had never used either of those terms. But over the last fifteen …
A husband’s story of end-of-life care at home
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Certified financial planner Michelle Neiswender discusses her article, “Why physicians should not be their own financial planner.” Michelle explains why physicians, despite being brilliant, often make costly financial mistakes when managing their …
Why being your own financial planner is costing you millions [PODCAST]
In the vast, undulating expanse of rural America (those counties where the horizon stretches like a taut bowstring, evoking the stoic endurance of Steinbeck’s Joads) one might expect the pulse of health care to beat with the resilient rhythm of native ingenuity. Yet, as a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals, physicians sponsored under the H-1B visa program are twice as prevalent in these bucolic …
The H-1B crutch in rural health care
A recent Wall Street Journal graphic traces the rise in autism prevalence among eight-year-olds from 2000 to 2020. The slope is unmistakable, upward, steady, and steep. But it’s not a crisis. It’s a reckoning.
Each inflection point on that chart marks a milestone in institutional clarity:
Autism prevalence surveillance: a reckoning, not a crisis
I strongly believe that working harder in medicine is making us as doctors poorer, and it’s quietly harming patients too. Not because we don’t care, but because rushing destroys the very thing patients need most: Time, attention, and real care.
Let me explain.
If you’re a medical doctor or another primary care clinician, you’ve probably heard this your whole career: “Work harder. Work faster. See more patients. Push more. Do more.” And …
Physician income vs. burnout: Why working harder fails
Take a look in your medicine cabinet. What you see isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a testament to one of the greatest partnerships in modern life: the one between your body and medical science. From the vaccine you got as a kid to the pill that keeps your blood pressure in check, these interventions aren’t just treating sickness. They are part of who you are. In a world still …
Our relationship with medicine: a triumph
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Professor and senior associate dean of engagement Janet A. Jokela discusses her article, “Celebrating internal medicine through our human connections with patients.” Janet shares moving stories from medical students who are discovering …
Rediscovering the sacred power of the patient story [PODCAST]
I have often heard people speak of numerology, weaving destinies around digits. They say that behind every event in a person’s life lies the hidden hand of numbers. I do not know if such beliefs hold scientific truth. Yet, in medicine, numbers certainly matter. Numbers fill our trial registers, power our statistics, shape our protocols. In research, life is reduced to codes, columns, and counts.
As a medical student, the jargon …
The human element in clinical trials
Primary care innovation has always been framed around access, autonomy, burnout, and patient experience. Direct primary care (DPC) in particular is often positioned as a solution for physicians exhausted by fee-for-service complexity and for patients who want a more personal relationship with their doctor.
This article focuses on how the broader economic landscape has shifted in ways that directly affect DPC, especially in light of the rapidly evolving national discussion around …
Is direct primary care sustainable in a downturn?
Not long ago, a friend told me, “I switched insurance and can’t find a doctor who will take me.” Another said, “I left Kaiser after going on Medicare and now no one will see me.” These aren’t isolated complaints. They’ve become the new reality in Silicon Valley: It’s easier to buy a multimillion-dollar home than to find a new primary care doctor.
I saw this problem firsthand before I retired from …
The Silicon Valley primary care doctor shortage
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Counselor and certified coach Mary Remón and oncologist Tiffany Troso-Sandoval discuss their article, “Clear communication is kind patient care.” They explore the common scenario of patients leaving the office more confused and …
Transforming patient fear into understanding through clear communication [PODCAST]
Most people exercise to improve cardiovascular fitness, metabolic health, or mood, but regular physical activity also plays a significant role in sexual and urinary function. As a urologist, I routinely see how movement influences two intimate yet essential systems: the reproductive system and the lower urinary tract.
When patients present with urinary leakage, erectile changes, or reduced libido, they often expect a prescription or procedure. Yet for many, measurable improvement begins …
How movement improves pelvic floor function
Adapted from The Care of Foreigners: How Immigrant Physicians Changed US Healthcare. Copyright 2025. Published with permission of Johns Hopkins University Press.
In the decades following the passage of the Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the face of American medicine irrevocably changed. This bill expedited the rapid entry of physicians from post-colonial Asian nations into the U.S. in significant numbers. In this migratory flow, South Asian physicians, in …
How immigrant physicians solved a U.S. crisis
“The FDA has issued a nationwide recall of lisdexamfetamine capsules.”
That sentence in Newsweek magazine should have triggered alerts, guidance, and coordinated response. Instead, the silence from pediatric leadership has been deafening. Newsweek turned to the FDA and the American Academy of Family Physicians. Where are the leadership of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics? Silent. Why?
The recall that should have sparked action
In …
Pediatric leadership silence on FDA ADHD recall
We entered medicine with a shared calling (to heal, to serve, and to make a difference). Yet somewhere along the journey, between the never-ending charting, late-night calls, and invisible emotional burdens, many of us forgot how to heal ourselves.
Every few months, another survey or report confirms what so many of us already sense in our bones: physicians are burning out at staggering rates. But what remains under-discussed, and perhaps even …
How relationships predict physician burnout risk
Some cases linger in our memory because of the humanity at their center. The case of Charlie Gard, which unfolded in England in 2017, is one of those. It took place within the National Health Service and under a legal framework in which courts decide a child’s treatment when parents and clinicians cannot agree. Before it became a global controversy, before it drew international headlines, it began as something far …
The ethical conflict of the Charlie Gard case
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