I became interested in medicine in my second year of college at Baylor University. I lived in the old Brooks Hall, which was built with large suites and communal bathrooms, and formerly used as military housing. Six of my suite-mates were pre-med and had doctors for either fathers or mothers. They all spoke of the work their respective parents did, and how much enjoyment treating patients brought them, and that …
Kudos to the new breed of physicians
It’s been said that history doesn’t repeat, but it does often rhyme. And as we’re learning during COVID-19, lessons from the past can be a guide to help us navigate a modern pandemic — if we listen to the rhythm of history.
For a little more than two years in the middle of the 19th century, Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia fought the Russian Empire for …
Everyone agrees nurses are heroes. Why aren’t we treating them that way?
If you ask a group of medical students to raise their hands if they are, in fact, racist, I’d venture to guess that not a single hand would shoot up. And I don’t think they would be lying. I am sure that no student believes that he, she, or they are a bigot.
Many of us have committed our lives to care for patients regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status. …
Deploring racism isn’t enough: Addressing white privilege in medical school
Art is a way to find yourself and lose yourself at the same time. When troubled, we experience the monkey mind, thinking of worst outcomes, or replaying past events. A creative pursuit helps stall that process by helping us actively practice mindfulness. There is no wrong brush stroke in art; you simply incorporate that into the painting and create something beautiful out of it. A good philosophy for life too, …
Incorporate art therapy into healing spaces
The one thing about the coronavirus I keep coming back to is how much SketchyMicro let me down.
Out of all the mnemonic cartoons SketchyMicro has produced, their entry for coronavirus is among the most simple: a kingly figure is blowing his nose into tissue paper beneath a blazing sun, his towering castle perched atop a hill in the distance. His regalia include a golden crown (to remind us of corona) …
A medical student asks: Are we just cartoon heroes?
An excerpt from A Leader’s Guide to Giving a Memorable Speech: How to Deliver a Message and Captivate an Audience.
“The most powerful words in English are ‘tell me a story.'”
—Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini
“Over the years I have become convinced that we …
People remember stories in your speech. The rest fades away.
An excerpt from Nurses are Nuts.
The pharmacy department plays a vital role in hospitals. They prepare and dispense medications. Sometimes the pharmacist will receive an order from the doctor on a med whose written dosage he is not sure of. In some cases, the pharmacist will …
Nurses do not get paid extra for being pharmacists
I spent many weeks as a patient in the hospital a few years ago and was encephalopathic during the entire stay. This means that I could speak and interact and, at times, especially to those who did not know me, appeared normal. I was told that I would give coherent lectures to the medical students who came to see me on rounds, only to not remember doing so an hour …
Not visiting your loved one in the hospital is an act of love
I never expected to find myself in this position. Ironically, I, a family medicine physician, in a world grappling with a pandemic, became underemployed for the first time since high school. A unique set of circumstances led me to this situation, but it turned out to be far more challenging for me emotionally than I expected.
At the end of 2019, I made a decision to leave my regular job as …
A story of a family physician looking for work during the pandemic
As someone trained in Brené Brown’s curriculum for helping professionals, vulnerability is my jam.
As a physician? Not so much.
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown already burned-out health care providers into the arena with more than just a shortage of equipment. We are now expected to risk our own lives caring for others, which was not part of the original job description. Medical providers are not Marines, nor do we work for …
Vulnerability is challenging but necessary for health care professionals
In late March, on what is known as Match Day, graduating medical students like myself found out where we would continue training as residents. This has always been an exciting but stressful time. This year it is more than that. On top of the countless challenges of starting residency, we are becoming doctors on the front lines of a pandemic.
How …
I’m a new doctor, and I’m scared about the other threat to my colleagues’ lives
Multiple times a week, I get messages asking some variation of, “How are you holding up?” I am neither an anesthesiologist, critical care, or ER physician, so I’m not three inches away from exposure while intubating patients with coronavirus. I am also not a nurse or respiratory therapist in a room dozen of times a day administering life-saving medications, performing vital assessments, or carefully managing the oxygen lifeline. I’m certainly …
Doctors, how are you holding up? You could answer in one of 5 ways.
Several weeks ago, after hearing that I plan to begin medical school this August, someone asked me if I still would have chosen to become a physician had I known about COVID-19.
When I submitted my AMCAS application one year ago, I never imagined that I would be waiting in quarantine, wondering whether I will have a white coat ceremony. It never crossed my mind that I would be reading articles, …
After the pandemic, would I choose medicine again?
“Your patient just had their 6th no-show, this exceeds our policy limit, please call to investigate barriers to care, also we recommend formal dismissal from the clinic.”
The message regarding one of my obstetric patients was waiting when I opened my inbox this morning. In our primary care office, we have a policy regarding “no-shows”: Patients who miss a scheduled appointment without calling ahead to cancel or reschedule. Three strikes and …
Michael Jordan. Kobe Bryant. Yao Ming. These are the biggest names in the basketball world, and all three were my superheroes growing up. Even though I’d never had the chance to meet them, to see how they carried themselves on and off the court-inspired me to push myself, to find out what my limits were physically and mentally, and to constantly create new goals for myself after accomplishing what I …
The parallels between basketball and pandemic medicine
If you’re amazed that people are still shaking hands, waltzing around mask-free in public, and rushing off to hair salons and beaches in some states, learn to think like a therapist. Understanding the underlying motivations of people who ignore and defy COVID-19 precautions will help you relate more effectively to those in your own life.
Recently, I was pushing my shopping cart down the supermarket aisle in the direction that the …
8 reasons why people ignore and defy COVID-19 safeguards
As a psychologist, I have long been aware of some of the emotional impacts that illnesses like COVID-19 can have on individuals and families. I never imagined that I would experience some of these impacts directly. Furthermore, I never could have guessed what it would feel like to be told I tested negative for COVID-19 when I was feverish and fighting for air at the height of the pandemic.
I started …
The unsettling result of a negative coronavirus test
A dear midwife teacher of mine, during my intern year as an OB/GYN, told me, “You need to stop wearing those rose-colored glasses.” She told me I had to take them off to be able to understand the depth and breadth of what my patients were telling me, so I could read between the lines and become a well-trained clinician. In the years that have passed since my first year …
My rose-colored glasses are my secret instrument for survival
The coronavirus pandemic has turned the world, and all of its citizens, around, never to be the same again. As an ICU and ventilator survivor, I focus on the drama of the patient’s room, and the reality of what is truly a tragic experience. Nineteen-ninety-eight seems like yesterday, and while it was 22 years ago, it is fresh in my mind.
The vacation abroad that fall was a sunny respite from …
A physician’s personal experience with sepsis and ventilator support
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended health care, with telemedicine emerging as a strategy to reduce risk exposures for patients and clinicians. Originating from the Greek root tēle-, tēl-, tēle meaning “far off, afar, at or to a distance,” telemedicine encompasses virtual clinical services. Video visits, in particular, can be effective for many types of clinical care and offer convenience and savings for patients. As care …
Strategies to foster meaningful connection during telemedicine visits
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