Do patients contribute to the God complex in surgeons?

Physician
September 23, 2015

Medical oncologist, Dr. Ranjana Srivastava wrote on the subject on how doctors treat doctors may be medicine’s secret shame in the Guardian back in February 2015.

About a month later, vascular surgeon Dr. Gabrielle McMullin used a book launch speech to expose the problems of sexual harassment in the surgical profession.  She highlighted a story of where a neurosurgical trainee had refused sexual advances and subsequent to launching a formal complaint, …

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It is time for an honest conversation about money and cancer

Physician
September 22, 2015

There are two, old, particularly nasty rumors, about cash and cancer. The first, which seems to be fading, is that scientists cured the disease long ago, but the pharmaceutical industry suppresses the cure so they can get rich selling worthless therapies. This never made sense to me, since the company or person that cures cancer will be rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. In addition, I have personally known several thousand …

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When patient-centered care becomes patient-dictated care

Physician
September 21, 2015

“I’d like an MRI for my leg pain. I haven’t had an MRI for many years, and I’m worried.”

These were some of the first words I heard from a patient I was seeing for a new patient visit. Based on this patient’s story and physical exam, her pain was most consistent with a muscle strain. My preferred approach to manage this complaint was to ask the patient to rest her …

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How good of a clinician are you?

Physician
September 21, 2015

In psychology, the Lake Wobegon effect refers to a mythical town where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” In other words, humans have a tendency to overestimate their capabilities, particularly in relation to others.

As a physician, I have yet to meet a fellow doc who didn’t think that their patients loved them or that they weren’t great clinicians. And …

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Pain tolerance: A story of two patients

Physician
September 21, 2015

One thing I learned early on as a doctor is different people have different tolerances for pain.  At one end of the spectrum, for example, I recall a woman who came to the emergency department with a small splinter in her foot.  She arrived wailing in pain, and we had to take her back to a treatment room ahead of other patients because her howling was scaring the people in …

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The story of the pot-smoking neurosurgeon is more complicated than you think

Meds
September 20, 2015

A brief article recently posted the name and picture of a neurosurgery resident accused of smoking marijuana on the job.  Dr. Gunjan Goel, MD is a neurosurgery resident at University of California, San Diego, and the list of her awards and publications alone is almost as long as my entire CV.  The article is brief, and rather uninformative.  The only facts that are known are this: The …

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Caring for the dying patient is a rewarding challenge

Physician
September 17, 2015

I walked silently into the pristinely decorated room of the hospice facility and was greeted by her family.  She lay there, not particularly responsive to her surroundings under the pressure and influences of metastatic stomach cancer.  The warmness and smiles on the faces of her family told me that at some point and somehow, in the midst of actively witnessing the transition of their mother, aunt, sister, and grandmother, they …

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Treating cancer: Doing nothing is also a choice

Physician
September 14, 2015

Dear doctor:

Attached please find the medical records of Mr. Ron C., who is transferring medical care to your office. Ron is a 63-year-old gentleman with recurrent lung cancer, which has spread to his opposite lung and bones. There are multiple treatment choices for his disease, which we have discussed in detail. However, Ron is leaving my care, because he does not trust me.

As you are well aware, metastatic lung cancer …

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The cafeteria can tell you a lot about the hospital. Here’s how.

Physician
September 14, 2015

Hospital cafeterias are important places. Great progress has been made over the last few years in raising the standard of the food served (to both patients and staff!), with much more emphasis too on making the options healthier and nutritious.

Speaking as someone who has worked in several different hospitals, and with my own general interest in health care quality and improving the patient experience, it’s always very interesting to look …

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Can you fake empathy until it becomes real?

Physician
September 13, 2015

Studies show over and over again that empathy is the key to physician-patient communication and is directly related to patient satisfaction, adherence to medical treatment, lawsuits, and clinical outcomes. Yet despite its importance, many doctors still struggle with showing empathy.

The reality is that while most medical students start school with high levels of empathy, it doesn’t take long before that empathy is beaten out of us.  Studies show …

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How anatomy lab changed this medical student forever

Education
September 13, 2015

I’m supposed to speak at the body donor memorial in September. I told the organizers my speech was written. “Don’t worry,” I assured them. “I have it all in my head, just need to get it down on paper. I’m a writer; it’s my process.” But the truth is that I am struggling with what to say. I’ve tried to write it, but I just end up drinking a pot …

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The day I saw the humanity in medicine

Education
September 13, 2015

At the heart of American medicine is the concept of bedside manner, and with it the concern that doctors are cold and unemotional. Indeed, doctors are exposed to disease and misfortune on a daily basis. A patient who presents with stage IV metastatic stomach cancer is just one of the many hundreds or thousands of such patients that will walk through the hospital doors in the coming years. Quotidian exposure …

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6 reasons why doctors grieve differently

Physician
September 11, 2015

I’ve been thinking about this over the last ten and a half years since my soul mate had a cardiac arrest and died. He was 38 and as fit as a fiddle. I am a rural general practitioner in South Australia (family practitioner in American parlance). He left behind four kids (from his previous relationship), and me with a broken heart. We had been together a little over two years.

Western …

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Is your hospital a miserable place to work? Here are 14 clues.

Physician
September 10, 2015

Earlier this month I read a Wall Street Journal article about Zeynep Ton’s Good Jobs Index. Who is Zeynep Ton? She is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management who has ranked retailers on employee happiness. This was so positive. It was good to hear about businesses concerned about employee happiness and not just about profits and shareholders.

Two weeks later I was dismayed to …

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Discussing the side effects of medications: How can doctors do better?

Meds
September 9, 2015

While studying for a certification exam, I came across a question that stayed with me well after taking the practice test. The case discussed a patient who was prescribed antibiotics by his physician for a presumed bacterial illness and then returned the following week with an antibiotic-associated diarrheal infection. The test question then asked what could be concluded from this case. The answer: informed consent (i.e., patient permission for a …

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4 ways to improve the lives of doctors and their patients

Policy
September 8, 2015

Ask physicians across the country what problems they want solved, and they won’t hesitate to tell you. They worry about the growing health risks they observe in patients based on lifestyle choices, obesity and a variety of social factors that they feel powerless to change. Ask what they would modify if they had a magic wand, and they’ll point to the illogical, problematic and increasingly complex reimbursement schemes still favored …

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How can we measure the doctor-patient relationship?

Policy
September 6, 2015

Sixty years ago, before he became a controversial figure in the field of psychiatry, Dr. Thomas S. Szasz co-authored an article for the Archives of Internal Medicine (now JAMA Internal Medicine) on “The Basic Models of the Doctor-Patient Relationship,” which is well worth reading today, particularly for those who believe that patient empowerment/engagement is a novel and disruptive innovation of our digital times.

The paper is describing …

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Why physician burnout and work-life balance is a first-world problem

Physician
September 5, 2015

Did it ever occur to some of today’s physicians that many people work awfully hard and complain a lot less than they do about “burnout” and “work-life balance”?

Did it ever occur to them that “work-life balance” is the very definition of a first-world problem, unique to a very privileged class of highly educated people, most of whom are white?

Every day, I go to work and see the example of the …

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Kim Kardashian’s first trimester nausea: The truth behind Diclegis

Meds
September 2, 2015

It was only a matter of time before Kim Kardashian posted a picture on her Instagram account with a bottle of Diclegis, basically announcing her brand partnership with Duchesnay, the manufacturer of the prescription medication for nausea and vomiting in pregnancy. Duchesnay had been tweeting for ages that they were so relieved Kim had found help with Diclegis — so much so that I was wondering if Ms. …

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