It’s a bit ironic that pilots, the people who spend the most time traveling above the magnificent landscape that is our planet earth, spend very little time appreciating the scenery.
That’s because they are trained to always be on guard for unexpected emergencies. While the passenger in a jumbo jet traversing the continent can admire the majesty of the Rocky Mountains, the desolation of the Great Salt Lake or the endless …
This semester is coming to an end and we are almost halfway done with first year. I say semester, but technically we use the block system. What’s the block system? Here, it refers to dividing the academic school year into single subject blocks. Instead of taking concurrent, year-long courses, we spend several weeks on one course. For instance, we started off with 5 weeks of only biochemistry, then 8 weeks …
I just finished another inpatient service stretch at our community hospital with some great cases and lots of good medicine. While attending rounds may have changed a lot in the last 40 years as highlighted in a recent Annals of Internal Medicine article, some things have not changed – the focus on medical student presentations during attending rounds.
Students spend hours through their call nights preparing for …
I was puzzled by a Health Affairs article showing the public finds arguments against treatment guidelines a lot more compelling than arguments in favor. But after reading the technical appendix, which contains the full text of the survey, I think the problem is that the researchers framed the question poorly. In particular, the researchers portrayed guidelines as unrealistically rigid.
In A National Survey Reveals Public Skepticism About Research-Based Treatment …
A reader recently asked, how does someone find a good psychiatrist?
Stated another way, the questions are:
I typed the question “How do I find a good psychiatrist?” in Google and got almost half a million results from around the world. I find it hard to believe …
Looking back, some of my biggest medical mistakes have been times when I was reactive rather than proactive when faced with a clinical problem. A doctor may have to be one or the other depending on the circumstances, but knowing when and which approach to take is one of the harder skills of medicine, taking time and experience to master.
What do I mean? Here are some examples from my field.
Treating …
Abdominal pain is the bane of many emergency physicians.
Recently, I wrote how CT scans are on the rise in the ER. Much of those scans look for potential causes of abdominal pain.
In an essay from TIME, Zachary Meisel discusses why abdominal pain, in his words, is the doctor’s “booby prize.” And when you consider that there are 7 million visits annually by people who report abdominal pain, that’s a …
What makes your doctor’s education unique from that of other health care providers?
Recently, I was sitting in on a lecture by one of my favorite physician-teachers (certainly my favorite neurologist). I’ll call him Dr. Deeds (for his resemblance to a character from the movie, Mr. Deeds). He was giving a sort of broad, generalized lecture to prepare us for a series of lectures on neurodegenerative diseases …
I am licensed to practice medicine and surgery in Georgia. But that doesn’t mean I should, or that you ought to let me—at least not the surgery part. I’m actually pretty good at carving a turkey, but that’s pretty much the only kind of surgery that I’m qualified to do.
Don’t let the license fool ya, I’m no surgeon. So what, exactly, does a doctor have …
They say you never forget your first “real” patient. Mine was a woman who didn’t need a pelvic exam, but who got one anyway.
Next door, minutes later, my second patient provided another personal first: a male genital and rectal exam, also, without need. Medical students like me begin training by practicing the basics on one another–listening to heart sounds, and looking into each other’s ears and eyes—but eventually, every clinician-in-training must lay …
We were taught in grammar school that plagiarism is wrong. It is stealing someone else’s property.
Imagine in high school asking your mother to buy you “Cliff Notes” so you can copy it word for word. Mother would not have liked that, and it wouldn’t have been right.
To write an essay today, you’ll probably start with a search engine. Instantly, Mr. Google delivers many intelligent commentaries on anything, probably better than …
by Nicholas J. Rohrhoff
Each generation of physicians has no choice but to take on the responsibility of learning the science of medicine – how best to care for patients. But current circumstances dictate that we must also bear the burden of developing policy that creates the best system in which to provide that care.
Creation of a 21st century American healthcare system will require engagement and …
by Marianna Rakovitsky, RPh
Recently, I have talked about the concerns with the use of NSAIDs and their effects on the heart. All medications carry a risk of adverse effects. NSAIDs are usually very effective in controlling pain especially muscle and bone pain, but they also carry a potential risk of side effects such as stomach and kidney problems, increased risk of bleeding and adverse effects …
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An excerpt from The Color of Atmosphere: One Doctor’s Journey In and Out of Medicine (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2011).
We all make mistakes. To err is human—unless you are a doctor. This is a lesson that began in med school. If something went wrong, someone else was to blame. Attending physicians blamed the residents, who blamed the interns, who blamed whomever else was within range—med student, nurse, patient. We gave …
I usually work two or three shifts a month at a small, rural hospital about two hours from where I live. Why? Mainly, the small hospital is less than ten miles from my childhood home, where my widowed father still resides, and thus provides me an opportunity to catch up with Dad as well as four of my siblings and their families, all who live within five miles of Dad.
I …
Chronic cough is a common condition that’s seen by many doctors, and in most cases, after a thorough history and exam, an answer can usually be found. However, just because a physician followed all the accepted guidelines and evidence based medicine principles to successfully address and treat a condition, it doesn’t mean that it was the right thing to do. Let me explain.
A 49 year old healthy woman presented to …
The other day, I happened to be talking to Mark, a sales representative from one of the pharmaceutical companies. He’s the type of rep that many doctors don’t mind seeing – someone who is careful of your time, is happy to hunt down the answers to questions that come up on the medications his company makes, and brings by useful information about new drugs that seem to be practice-appropriate. He …
The following is a brief list of some of the things I think have been useful and worth their money in my first two years of med school:
1. Large, widescreen computer monitor. The volume of information required to internalize during the preclinical years of medical school can’t be compiled and organized on paper. You would end up with bookshelves filled with those gigantic 4″ binders. Therefore, almost everything happens on …
A common complaint about modern medicine is the depersonalization of the patient and the loss of compassion.
So let’s take a look at compassion.
Compassion is derived from the Latin “cum” (together with) and “patior” (suffer). From the perspective of clinicians, compassion is defined by two concurrent emotions: (1) a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by medical misfortune accompanied by (2) a strong desire to relieve that …
An excerpt from White Coat, Black Hat.
by Carl Elliott
Many of us have a relatively simple, commonsense view of the way that drug development and marketing work.
People get diseases; scientists develop drugs to treat those diseases; and marketers sell the drugs by showing that the drugs work better than their competitors. Sometimes, however, this pattern works in reverse. Drug company scientists develop a drug …
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