I’m an ER doc, and I spent my last two decades in the house of medicine. First, training to become a doctor. Then, trying to be a better doctor. No matter how hard I tried, I’ve never been the “perfect doctor.” I started wondering: what makes one a “perfect doctor”?
The perfect doctor lives in the moment, focusing on the here and now: This patient. This case. This encounter. They devote …
What makes the perfect doctor?
In the wake of the opioid epidemic, benzodiazepines have been called “our other prescription drug problem” and “the next U.S. drug crisis.” Prescriptions are on the rise, with over 30 million Americans reporting benzodiazepine use in the previous year. This is alarming, as benzodiazepines are implicated in at least 30% …
Stop cutting patients off their prescribed benzodiazepines
The standard business model around which our world revolves has no place in the “business” of human life, which is what the commercialized industry of health care has become. To be the most successful, businesses work to optimize profits by minimizing their operating costs, which include material resources and all the steps involved in distributing their product. This business model, in some form, is applied universally from the manufacturing and …
Is health care just legal human trafficking?
At kitchen tables everywhere, ordinary Americans have been grappling with the arcane language of deductibles and co-pays as they’ve struggled to select a health insurance plan during open enrollment season.
Unfortunately, critical information that could literally spell the difference between life and death is conspicuously absent from the glossy brochures and eye-catching websites.
Which plan will arrange a consultation with top-tier oncologists if I’m diagnosed with a complex …
The hidden benefits of your health insurance plan can save your life
“Let me order some labs, and then we’ll discuss where we go from there once I have the results.”
I walk out of the patient’s room and right into one of my nurses. “Zoe, can we start that lady on pressors like we talked about? Her blood pressure is still low after the fluids. I need you to put the order in so the pharmacy can send it up.”
I smile my …
The difference between shallow and deep work in medicine
“I don’t know.”
That is an answer patients hate to hear. It is also an answer doctors hate to utter, and in truth, many of us fail to say those words when it would be proper to say them. Doctors spent long hours over many years of training, sacrificing personal time and family life. Most of us are perfectionists, and not knowing a medical diagnosis often feels like failure. Perhaps, the …
Stand up and be heard. But don’t hate your doctor.
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
There is a global anesthesia crisis: too few people trained to give anesthetics for surgery and obstetrics worldwide. The Lancet launched a commission to look at the needs for global surgery, which identified the issues starkly. While international disease control efforts have …
There is a global anesthesia crisis
I overheard a disappointing phone call while supervising a radiology resident recently. I could tell that the resident was struggling in a conversation with an emergency department physician, so I asked him to switch over to speakerphone. Eventually, I heard the emergency physician say, “Listen. This is how it works. A patient points to what hurts. Then I have that part scanned, and you tell me what is wrong.”
Disheartening as …
The continuing battle between the emergency department and radiology
Advancements in technology have blurred the lines between work and home life. This is because modern technology, such as the smartphone has made it easier for others to reach us. Time and location no longer serve as barriers. It is not uncommon for work-related matters to reach us via email or text after hours. People are continuing their work from home rather than enjoying precious time with loved ones.
Physicians are …
How setting healthy boundaries can help you regain control in a demanding world
The first time a woman went into the final stage of labor, I watched from a corner of the room. As a third-year medical student, I was on my six-week clinical rotation in obstetrics and gynecology, and it was day one of the two-week portion on the labor and delivery floor. As a loudspeaker announcement projected over the woman’s screams, and nurses and doctors rushed in response, I instinctively clasped …
The excitement of clinical rotations: Not just learning medicine but doing medicine
I’m writing this for my tribe of worriers and self-doubters, people for whom ever-present test stress is inextricable to the med school experience. Sure, every medical student becomes preoccupied fretting over exams to some degree. That’s part of what you sign up for. But our preoccupation is something greater than that—it towers over us and bullies us. It makes us cower in the corner, begging to be spared from harm.
We’re …
For students with test stress, medical schools leave a void
Having recently testified in several legal cases involving strangulation, here are some facts we all need to know about this extreme form of domestic violence (DV). I invite other subject matter experts to share their personal opinions on what is important.
1. Strangulation is assault with a deadly weapon – an act with known potential lethal consequences. Formally defined, strangulation is an external force applied to the neck cutting off blood …
10 things you need to know about strangulation and domestic violence
I have been fortunate in that I have not had to hospitalize any patients in the past four weeks. This means I have an extra 60 minutes or more to prepare for the workday in my office. The streak ended this weekend when my associate, taking his rotation of being on call, hospitalized one of my patients with pneumonia.
In many cases, pneumonia is treated as an outpatient. You receive an …
Why this primary care physician still rounds at the hospital
I am frequently asked: “Why are you pursuing a dual MD/JD?” Neither profession is a family business; no one in my family is a doctor or a lawyer — but I’ve always dreamt big. I always wanted to get the most possible out of my education. Beginning in elementary school, I knew I wanted to be a doctor, but it was not until college that I …
Why this medical student is pursuing a dual MD/JD
My next patient was a healthy man in his early 20s following up for eczema. His case had not been severe, so I had anticipated that the prescription strength steroid cream I had given him would have addressed his symptoms faster than I had promised. His chief complaint had been itch—a symptom—something that he was experiencing. He hadn’t even noticed the rash. It was what one would call “bread and …
Alexithymia: patient satisfaction, doctor burnout and health care costs
“Slowly comes the hour, it’s passing speed how great.”
– Samuel Cowper
Our careers will end someday.
Of course, we know this deep down, but I think we lose sight of it amid our training and the day-to-day grind of our jobs.
But just this past week, I was given a little reminder.
At our Christmas party, we took some time to honor one of our colleagues on his journey to retirement. He had spent …
Your medical career won’t last forever
The other night, while I was getting out of my car, my oldest son, standing on the porch, excitedly yelled out, “Mom, look at this lego structure I made!”
I couldn’t see it, but I could tell how happy he was to show it to me. “It looks neat from here. Let me get closer.”
My husband appeared, knowing how tired I was, “Mom worked a long day. Why don’t you let …
When physicians are so emotionally drained, they have nothing left for their families
There’s so much negativity out there when it comes to health care, it must be a concern to any young person thinking about entering the field. I certainly spend a lot of time writing about all the challenges we face, and have to hold my hands up to (occasionally) spreading some of that negativity as well! Guilty as charged. That’s why it’s important for anyone outside of health care (or …
This doctor has no regrets to becoming a physician. Here are 3 reasons why.
It wasn’t until I first had to manage the aftermath of a sexual assault on a psychiatric unit one night during my residency that I realized psychiatry might have a problem with sexual safety.
My fellow residents and I had never been informed of a management policy for inpatient sexual assaults, and my program’s curriculum was silent on how to handle the issue.
Because the assault involved a psychotic patient who was …
Waking up to the sexual violence in America’s psychiatric units
I bid farewell to four people this month who I’ve been caring for in my outpatient psychiatry practice — all under sensitive circumstances but ultimately moving in positive directions. As I write formal discharge letters, the unique role psychiatrists and other mental health clinicians play in the lives and minds of the people we care for is on my mind.
It is the nature of our healing practice to build trust …
A psychiatrist can’t help patients anymore
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