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Pediatrician and certified coach Jessie Mahoney discusses her article “How to get physician wellness programs funded: a proven path forward.” Drawing on nearly two decades of experience navigating institutional hurdles and five …
Adapted from Greed to Do Good: The Untold Story of CDC’s Disastrous War on Opioids.
The 2016 CDC opioid guideline seemed to make obvious sense: Americans were consuming far too many prescribed opioids. Many users of illicit opioids reported that prescribed opioids had been their gateway to illicit usage, even addiction. And users of illegal opioids, whether addicts or not, were dying of overdoses—more and more each year. The prescription …
For many physicians, the word “negotiation” conjures up stress.
Most of us weren’t taught that negotiation is something we do every day—at work, at home, and in nearly every human interaction. Whether we’re persuading a patient to change a behavior, deciding on a restaurant with a partner, or navigating parenting decisions, we are constantly negotiating. Many physicians—especially women physicians—find negotiating extremely uncomfortable.
Why?
Because …
Kobe Bryant’s impact on my life and career stretches far beyond the basketball court. The essence of his spirit—his commitment to excellence, his relentless pursuit of mastery, and his unyielding work ethic—has inspired me not only in the game of basketball but in the field of medicine as well.
Kobe came into my life as Michael Jordan was leaving the game. While I was fortunate enough to witness the latter half …
Leadership in any industry, especially in health care, demands a delicate balance of trust, ethical judgment, and professionalism. However, when leaders view collaboration through a lens of suspicion, assuming that employees are conspiring against them, it can lead to a culture of distrust and unprofessional behavior. This article delves into the psychological and ethical aspects of such behavior, its impact on workplace dynamics, and practical strategies for navigating these challenging …
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Health care executive Jeffry A. Peters discusses his article “Ending physicians’ addiction to unhappiness,” focusing on the systemic factors fueling widespread dissatisfaction among doctors. Jeffry outlines how declining reimbursement, increased patient volume, …
Amidst the recent news about the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO, the issue of prior authorization has come to the forefront again. Insurance companies use prior authorization as an easy tool to control the costs and incorporate it as a genuine step of the health care delivery process. The recent trend is to use AI (artificial intelligence) for prior authorizations. AI offers several advantages over human workers, further saving time and …
Unless you’ve lived it,
you can’t fully understand.
We’ve all cared for patients with cancer. We’ve delivered hard news, sat beside bedsides, explained scan results, and offered hope when we could. We’ve been the calm in the storm. That’s what we were trained to do.
But being on the other side of the table changes everything.
When you become the patient, the world shifts beneath you. Suddenly, you’re the one in the gown, lying …
How or when did physicians move from being teachers and healers who comfort and ease fear and pain to fear-inducing informational social media establishments?
I am a huge fan of sharing information and using tools and technology to do so with a larger audience. After all, our office or operating room are no longer the only venue where we can impact patients.
However, why have so many turned to fear-inducing videos, posts, …
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Child psychiatrist Ellen K. Feldman discusses her article “How social media is shaping teen mental health and what we can do about it,” highlighting the growing concerns about social media’s impact on …
Before leaving office, the Biden administration increased the annual cap for Medicaid-reimbursed contingency management (an evidence-based psychosocial intervention) as part of an individual’s addiction treatment. This move demonstrates what I have seen in my own practice: Contingency management drives results when it comes to treating substance use disorder.
Despite the evidence and fact that every individual living with substance use disorder (SUD) requires a unique approach to treatment for …
Sometimes doing what we do is so hard. We get intimately involved in our patients’ lives, and instead of maintaining a clinical distance, you get sucked into the drama that has unfolded in their lives—the very events that bring them to the ED on this day. Then there’s a great difficulty in not judging, in not letting what you learn about them affect you or distract you from doing the …
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Medical student Christopher Nmai discusses his article, “Leaving medicine is not a failure: It might be the change you always needed.” Christopher shares his deeply personal decision to forgo residency and explore …
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Physicians, practices, and other health care providers seem to face a continual decline in reimbursements. According to an AMA analysis, inflation-adjusted Medicare reimbursement rates for physicians dropped 22 percent from 2001 to 2021, and insurers of Affordable Care Act plans denied 17 percent of in-network claims in 2021.
The gut reaction is often to increase growth, but that brings on problems of its own, like reduced profitability from increased overhead and …
I’ve just returned from the Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Conference in Michigan, an inspiring confluence of advocacy, research, and business, all focused on one shared mission: Improving the lives of those living with food allergies. I’ve been attending food allergy research forums around the world for over a decade, and I can honestly say the momentum and possibilities in this field have never been more exciting. We’re …
Four rigorous years, filled with countless long days and nights of education, is often just the beginning for most medical trainees. The Match and subsequent residency await on the horizon. It is the norm in health care, and very few stray from that path. But medicine is a long and arduous path, one that can take its toll on trainees and physicians alike.
As I entered my final year …
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A personal discovery
“I used to have respiratory allergies back home, but since I moved to Málaga, they didn’t bother me anymore,” a patient answered to the usual question, “Do you have any allergies?” during a checkup in my occupational medicine practice. He was from India, and he had moved to Málaga two years before our talk. He was the fourth patient within a month telling me the same story (before …
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Anesthesiologist Colleen Naglee discusses her article, “We should tip health care workers too.” Colleen reflects on the rise of tipping culture in everyday services and questions why health care workers—who risk violence, …
Gone are the days when careers followed linear paths and job titles neatly fit into predefined boxes. Today’s health care industry celebrates versatility, and hybrid professionals are redefining what it means to succeed. A hybrid health care professional combines skills and expertise from different fields, blending knowledge to create unique value in the health care space. Whether you’re a nurse with coding skills, a doctor with a passion for data …
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An excerpt from Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General.
“I was the salesman for pediatric surgery. I have the knack of talking to an audience and convincing [them] about what I’m saying is true.”
– CEK
The early 1950s witnessed an extraordinary burst of professional activity on the part of the young surgeon, still in his 30s, as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) …
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