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How becoming a doctor can help and hurt the ability to build wealth

Finance

June 26, 2019

I recently graduated from medical school and will soon start residency. Yay! Although I’m happy with my decision to become a doctor, I can’t help but notice that there are several ways that going to medical school and becoming a physician helped — and hurt — my ability to build wealth.

Ways it helped me build wealth:

1. I will have a high income. Most of us doctors will make at least …

Travel during residency: perspective of a resident’s spouse

Bethany Vana

Physician

June 26, 2019

My husband and I are nearing the completion of a fifth and final year of residency. I say “we” because, as all residents know, the training years involve the entire family. As I reflect on the struggles and successes over the past five years, there are a few things that I know have helped us cope with the challenges, and one of those things has been travel.

We made significant life …

Medicine is the last bastion of faxes and printers

Fred N. Pelzman, MD

Physician

June 26, 2019

Yesterday, I went into an exam room to print out some orders for a patient who needed to get his labs done at an outside facility.

Due to his insurance, he cannot get his labs drawn in our office during a scheduled appointment, but must do it at one of the laboratories that his insurer has contracted with.

Not a terribly big …

Concussion treatment centers: 5 red flags to watch for

Mark McLaughlin, MD

Conditions

June 25, 2019

The incidence of brain trauma has been rising in recent years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), emergency department visits related to traumatic brain injury (TBI) increased by 53 percent in the U.S. from 2006 to 2014. For 2014 alone, the CDC reported about 2.87 million TBI-related visits, hospitalizations, and deaths. Reports of concussions in high school athletes have also increased in recent …

How to have an exciting death: 5 tips from a palliative care physician

Christi Bartlett, MD

Conditions

June 25, 2019

We’re all gonna die.

It’s a simple truth that an astounding number of people neglect to acknowledge or accept. Some people die sudden, unexpected deaths, but most eventually fall victim to chronic or terminal conditions like COPD, heart failure or cancer. As a palliative care physician, I often meet patients who have had conversations with their families about their end of life wishes and have completed supporting legal documents.

While I appreciate …

Our doctors are suffering from human rights violations in medicine

Pamela Wible, MD

Physician

June 24, 2019

An excerpt from Human Rights Violations in Medicine: A-to-Z Action Guide.

From sex trafficking to censorship, the range of human rights violations is immense, some more heinous than others. Abuse may be perpetrated by dictators in war-torn countries and administrators in first-world hospitals. Inside this action guide are the top …

What should a cure for cancer look like?

J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, MD

Conditions

June 23, 2019

Words have meaning. And when it comes to cancer, especially advanced cancer, there aren’t many words that have more meaning than the word “cure.” It is that very word and concept that is top of mind for some of us these days.

We clinicians are guilty as charged when it comes to reluctance declaring those who have had a remarkable response to treatments for advanced cancer “cured.” Experience has taught us …

4 reasons why doctors are bad with money

James Turner, MD

Finance

June 22, 2019

Whenever I tell people outside of medicine how bad doctors are with money, they are always shocked. Almost universally, they wonder why we don’t save enough money. They understand that – to become a doctor – you must be hardworking, intelligent, and dedicated to the cause. These are the same attributes – when they are applied correctly – that result in financial success. How in the world can …

Are antibiotics needed for your child with an ear infection?

Christopher Johnson, MD

Conditions

June 22, 2019

The common practice in this country (although not everywhere — Europe, for example) has long been to treat all acute middle ear infections (otitis media) with antibiotics. This is not necessarily needed. We now know that for many children another reasonable approach is to wait a day or so to see if the symptoms get better on their own without antibiotics. Parents have an important role in making this choice. …

Steadying patients’ fears about shaking hands

Travis Tierney, MD

Conditions

June 21, 2019

A patient walks into the doctor’s office and says:

I hate feeling this way. Yes, I know it’s not cancer and it won’t kill me, but this shaking has made me a different person. I can’t sign my name. I drop and spill things all the time. I’m afraid to pick up my baby grandson. I don’t go out anymore because I’m embarrassed. And I don’t know what can be done. …

Read more…

Steadying patients’ fears about shaking hands

Words of wisdom to a residency’s graduating class

Lisa Sieczkowski, MD

Physician

June 21, 2019

To my residency class:

The clock is ticking, its hands spinning around its face faster and faster until I feel dizzy and disoriented. The remainder of the academic year can be measured in days, even hours for some. The carousel is slowing down to let some off, some on. Some, like me, will remain in the saddles of their brightly painted ponies. The cheerful calliope melody becomes distorted with the change …

Fasting for Ramadan and being the on-call orthopedic trauma resident

Adil Shahzad Ahmed, MD

Physician

June 20, 2019

A patient groans in agony lying atop a rigid spine board, carried by paramedics into the ER, his neck in a protective collar. The paramedics shout a summary of the accident. Monitors are attached to the man, flashing and beeping the cadence of vital signs. Nurses and physicians swarm. Gloved hands comb through brown hair for bumps or lacerations. They remove his clothes, feeling for pulses in the neck and …

How is Alex Trebek doing with his pancreatic cancer treatment?

Michele R. Berman, MD and Mark S. Boguski, MD, PhD

Conditions

June 20, 2019

In a recent People article, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek shared some good news. Diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in March, Trebek said he was told that he has been responding very well to his chemotherapy regimen, and that he’s in “near remission.”

He went on to say, “It’s kind of mind-boggling. … The doctors said they hadn’t seen this kind of positive …

A medical student’s reflection of “firsts”

Grant Wallenfelsz

Education

June 20, 2019

It is honorable to fight a battle in the face of an inevitable ending while not knowing when that end may come.

First day of third year — the year most medical students take a sigh of relief as they put their Step 1 book on the shelf and prepare to face the wards:

I happened to draw the short straw by having my surgical rotation first, one that often brings an …

What happens when doctors discriminate against patients?

Sheila Ramanathan, DO

Physician

June 19, 2019

Physicians have a long history of discriminating against patients, and racial discrimination only scratches the surface of current problems facing patients who seek access to care. The Tuskegee Syphilis trials demonstrated how the medical community exploited and compromised the trust of African American patients. Recent research indicates that out of a study of 222 residents and medical students, about half demonstrated false beliefs concerning biological differences between white and black …

Should we change resident duty hours?

Michael Grzeskowiak, MD

Physician

June 19, 2019

As I listened to my attending explain how during her residency training she was on call every third night, I realized how the definition of “call” had significantly changed since that time. For her, it meant her shift started at 6 a.m. and ended at 8 p.m. the next day, totaling the shift to upwards of 36 hours. My call, on the other hand, was a mere 6 a.m. to …

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Should we change resident duty hours?

Maximize locum tenens income: 4 tips to make more and work less

The LocumGuy

Physician

June 17, 2019

Every hospitalist heard that locum tenens work pays better than permanent. Of course, I did, too, when I first started practicing. This was one of the reasons why I switched to the full-time locum tenens years ago.

Now, things have changed since then, and employed hospitalist salaries have been rising steadily over the years. It became obvious, then, that $150 per hour for locum tenens work doesn’t cut it …

Career or the egg? Is it time to put pregnancy first?

Ellen Wood, DO

Physician

June 17, 2019

Whether to have a child before becoming an attending physician is a personal choice, but as a fertility specialist, I’m concerned that many people — including physicians — overestimate the effectiveness of today’s fertility treatments.

In the U.S., the average age at which women have their first child went from 21.4 years in 1970 to 26.6 in 2016. Experts attribute that in part to more people seeking advanced education and taking …

The inflammatory myopathies rap video you didn’t know you needed

Jorge Muniz, PA-C and Neil Bobenhouse

Video

June 17, 2019

Learn about the differences between polymyositis and dermatomyositis the Medcomic way.

Illustrated by Jorge Muniz and music by Neil Bobenhouse.

Image credit: Medcomic.com

The inflammatory myopathies rap video you didn’t know you needed

Working in the ER taught this doctor what evil really means

Edwin Leap, MD

Physician

June 17, 2019

If you ask people if there is evil in the world, a lot of them will smile politely at such an obviously Medieval (or Neanderthal) view of the world. Which, of course, is a bit of an insult to both groups who were from all evidence quite intelligent folks.

Some might rattle off some examples of evil. Things like intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and assorted others. Disregard for the imminent …

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