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When you identify your Lyft driver as potentially having bipolar disorder

Anonymous

Conditions

February 15, 2019

I remember September 27, 2018 like it was yesterday. When Ashley* picked me up from my apartment Thursday morning, I thought it would be like the 138 past Lyft rides I’ve taken since 2017. I was wrong.

After I waived to Ashley from the curb, I got settled into the right back seat. The doors locked, and she asked me the usual question.

“You from here?”

“Yes, I’m a local.”

“That’s great! I’m from …

The clinical and financial life of a pediatrician

Smart Money, MD

Physician

February 14, 2019

Most doctors well into their tenure of medical already have a general idea about how other specialists spend their days (except for radiation oncologists, where no one else knows what they do). However, as a medical student, I had incredibly limited insight into the variety of means to practice medicine. Even as an attending physician, I am still discovering how creative some medical specialties allow one to be. For instance, …

She was dead: How shame almost ruined a physician’s life

Robyn Alley-Hay, MD

Physician

February 14, 2019

Dear friends— especially my colleagues,

I recently failed a class (I have been working on a PhD in psychology) and found myself immobilized and disengaged from life, personal happiness and joy. I actually didn’t even tell my husband, who is my true confidant of my feeling and thoughts, until the following day. I found myself in that familiar place of guilt and shame. I thought I had transformed a lot of …

The hidden curriculum of medicine

Errin Weisman, DO

Education

February 13, 2019

Think all the way back to your grade school years. Did you know that your personality traits were starting to be honed for the work you do today? Let me give you some examples about myself and see if you can relate.

I remember the praise and exhilaration of being the only kid in the class to get a 100 percent on an extremely difficult second-grade spelling test. My teacher told …

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The hidden curriculum of medicine

Wonder why your hospital is full?

Steve M. Grant, MD

Physician

February 11, 2019

Why is your hospital always full? Actually, it’s more than full. You have twenty boarders in the ED. You turned your postop recovery unit into an overnight surge center. Every day administrators beg you to please, please discharge patients, if possible before 11 a.m. You’ve hired an army of case managers, dissected the discharge process, and held countless capacity management meetings, but you’re still bursting at the seams.

It wasn’t always …

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Wonder why your hospital is full?

My battle against the nurse’s cap

Debbie Moore-Black, RN

Policy

February 10, 2019

Florence Nightingale was among the first nurses who started wearing a nurse’s cap.

The cap was derived by nuns and represented those caring for the sick. Hair was neatly tightened into a bun and covered by the cap.
Back then becoming a nurse was typically seen as a female profession, but men were allowed to become nurses too. In 1930, only one percent of RNs nationwide were male.

Growing up in the 1950s …

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My battle against the nurse’s cap

How many beers is too many?

Mariam Alam, MD

Conditions

February 10, 2019

“I drank beer with my friends. Almost everyone did.”

Alcohol has become constitutional to American culture: “grabbing a drink” after work, happy hour, cheers before meals, on New Year’s, or just because. Our society’s normalization of drinking creates a slippery slope toward excessive alcohol use. Unhealthy alcohol use is rampant: one in six Americans drinks excessively four times a month, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Almost thirty percent …

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How many beers is too many?

5 things emergency physicians should consider when looking for jobs

Health eCareers

Physician

February 9, 2019

This article is sponsored by Careers by KevinMD.com.

Whether you recently completed your residency as an emergency medicine (EM) physician or are ready to move on from your current position, potential locations for work are undoubtedly a big factor in determining which emergency physician jobs you’re willing to consider.

If you have children, location is especially important, because you want …

The personal and professional challenges of women physicians

Nisha Mehta, MD

Physician

February 8, 2019

I’m often asked to write and speak about being a woman physician. I don’t know that any of my male physician colleagues have ever been asked to talk about being a male physician. Many hospital systems have women in medicine groups, and there’s now a National Women Physicians Day. Again, don’t know of the same for male physicians. There’s a part of me that struggles with this, but I …

The true cost of being uninsured in America

Michael Weiss, MD

Policy

February 8, 2019

In a New York Post article dated January 23, 2019, the author states how Americans without health care insurance hit 13.7 percent. This 2.8 percent increase means an additional seven-million Americans lack health coverage as noted by the Gallup survey period.

This is not far behind the 18 percent recorded just before the Obamacare mandate in 2014.

Everyone is blamed in this article except the culprits. Do you think for one moment …

6 resources on the power of narrative medicine

Jennifer Lycette, MD

Physician

February 8, 2019

When I first turned to writing, I had no knowledge of the field of narrative medicine.

It took four years of medical school, three years of residency, three years of subspecialty fellowship and over a decade in practice before I learned of it. (That’s more than 20 years, for those counting.)

Throughout, I’ve struggled to hold fast to my core belief that the key to patient care is to allow the telling …

What is your passion in medicine?

Stephanie Wellington, MD

Physician

February 7, 2019

We don’t talk much about passion in medicine anymore.

What is your passion for medicine? What was it that sparked your initial desire to pursue this career instead of another? What is the impact you are called to make as a doctor?

I was speaking with a friend who is not in medicine and asked why he picked his chosen field. He is knowledgeable and skilled at many different things. He admitted …

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What is your passion in medicine?

Radiation oncologists aren’t just strangers in the basement

Mudit Chowdhary, MD

Physician

February 6, 2019

“We have a consult for radiation oncology regarding a 60-year-old gentleman with a history of lung cancer and is currently admitted. His oncologist is Dr. Heme Onc.”

As a new radiation oncology resident, I was surprised to hear the consulting physician refer to the patient’s medical oncologist as “his oncologist.” What about the patient’s radiation oncologist? Indeed, I remembered the patient well: he was diagnosed with Stage IIIB non-small cell lung …

Compassion, respect, and camaraderie are keys to fight physician depression

Audris Bol, MD

Physician

February 6, 2019

My story starts like most individuals who enter into medical training. I had the dream that being a physician was my life calling to bring physical healing to others. While I did gain medical knowledge and skills, I also unintentionally developed a jaded mentality. I was quickly introduced to the reality of medical culture in which public embarrassment from “pimping” (a series of difficult intentionally unanswerable questions posed to medical …

How to say “no” to kids

Jennifer Trachtenberg, MD

Physician

February 6, 2019

Do you feel like you’re always saying “no” to your child and not getting the response from them that you are looking for? Do you end up repeating yourself over and over, so frustrated you begin to yell or just given in to your toddler’s demands? Unfortunately, I hear this way too often from moms, so I wanted to give some tips on the art of saying “no” that will …

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How to say “no” to kids

How an insurance company auditor tried to destroy a physician’s career

Niran S. Al-Agba, MD

Physician

February 6, 2019

It’s no secret that in today’s health care market, insurance companies are calling the shots. As a pediatrician in private practice for almost two decades, I’ve seen insurance companies transform into perhaps the single most powerful player in today’s health care landscape — final arbiters whose decisions about which procedures or medications to authorize effectively end up determining the course of patient care.

Decisions made by insurers, such as MassHealth, have …

Practice at the top of your license: What does that really mean?

Philip A. Masters, MD

Physician

February 5, 2019

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com.

Much has been discussed in recent years around the concept of “practicing at the top of your license.” But what does this really mean?

The most common definition is that each medical professional’s routine activities should utilize the full extent of their education, training, …

2 questions every physician should ask themselves

Lisa Herbert, MD

Physician

February 5, 2019

The numbers are in. Medscape National Physician Burnout, Depression & Suicide Report 2019 indicates that the rate of physician burnout is still at an all-time high. Forty-four percent of physicians reported feeling burnt out.

According to the report, 50 percent of women reported experiencing burnout versus 38 percent of men. Carol Bernstein, MD, a psychiatrist at NYU Langone Medical Center, states that the reasons for the difference …

It’s time to update the stethoscope

Davinder Ramsingh, MD

Conditions

February 5, 2019

Perhaps the most important aspect of a physician’s role is our diagnostic capabilities. Truly, if we cannot identify and diagnose a patient’s pathology with reasonable accuracy, we cannot effectively treat them and may even cause greater harm.

Let’s look back. The year is 1816, and you are a physician evaluating a patient with shortness of breath. The common practice of the time was direct auscultation by placement of the practitioner’s ear …

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It’s time to update the stethoscope

Why would any woman discourage a man’s advocacy or support?

Agnieszka Solberg, MD

Physician

February 4, 2019

A male interventional radiologist who is active in the #HeForShe campaign recently told me that he is being pressured to stop advocating for women. My first instinct was the biggest sigh and eyeroll of my life followed by thoughts of locker room peer pressure and boys’ club type discussions.

But the criticism did not just come from men; many women are asking him to stop. That they don’t need a knight …