I have written about pain medicine, previously on this blog, and it generated some spirited responses. Let me be clear that I am completely against all forms of pain, whether foreign or domestic, physical, spiritual, psychic or even phantom. The medical profession has superb tools to combat and relieve pain, and physicians should utilize them, within the boundaries of appropriate use. We now have an actual specialty — …
Are doctors the new drug dealers?
“Medicine Purple is now rounding at Room 202.” The announcement rang throughout the hallways on the lower pavilion. It was an announcement I had heard many times before, but this time it was quite different. As I glanced in the upper right-hand corner of the electronic medical record of my first patient, the following glared back at me in all capital letters: “ATTENDING: COOPER, JOSEPH DAVID.” I had imagined the …
The moment my passion for clinical care was reaffirmed
I am a professor of family medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School. During their third and fourth years, students must complete a four-week clerkship in family medicine. The clerkship includes a “significant-event reflection” project, in which students discuss patient encounters that they’ve found especially meaningful.
Over nearly a decade as a facilitator for these groups, I have heard many powerful and emotional stories. I’ve often felt deeply moved–and admiring …
Why I’m a doctor: Life-changing stories from med students
In my home, we have two conversations: politics and medicine. The most vociferous discussions are around their product, health care. We know doctors on the right and left, Democrat and Republican, boisterous blues, rebellious reds and garrulous grays. Respecting opinions and debate, we love ‘em all. However, no matter on what side of the aisle they stand, which lever they pull, they share one trait. All physicians are deeply conservative. …
I recently had the privilege of speaking to a group of high school students who were interested in becoming doctors. A large number of them were volunteering in my hospital, and their coordinator asked me if I could spare some time to chat with them about life as a doctor and what they should be doing to get into medicine.
I remember as if it were yesterday when I was their …
For those who want to be doctors: Follow this piece of advice
Dear future doctor,
Please remember. Remember what it feels like to be a patient.
Remember the pain, remember the anguish of the unknown, remember the detours of being referred from one physician to the next, and how you hoped that this doctor would finally be able to diagnose you and empathize with your suffering. Remember the agony of not knowing what caused the mysterious, writhing pain; however, at the same time being …
Dear future doctor: Remember what it feels like to be a patient
After finishing three years in medical school, I recently moved over to Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. I decided to pursue an MBA in addition to my MD and will graduate two years from now with both degrees.
I’m not alone. There are 11 MD/MBA candidates in my business school class, including nine from Stanford. Our cohort is part of a small but growing trend towards doctors obtaining business training. The …
Most everyone has had the experience of sitting across from a doctor, being offered a prescription and walking out the door. Most patients will accept the instructions — maybe ask a few questions — and move on. For some of those patients, the medications are more than a one-off; they are intended to be taken indefinitely.
One of the most common of these medications is a statin. Imagine you exercise four …
Should I take a statin to lower my risk of a heart attack?
I am currently a fourth-year medical student, and I will not accept mediocrity in my life any longer (and neither should you).
When you were growing up did you ever wish for happiness? Did you ask for a good life? Did you want to feel fulfilled and self-actualized? Yeah me too. We are meant to reach for the stars, we are meant to go for our dreams, and we are meant …
My future as a physician looks mediocre at best
In our current health care system, doctors should get to decide what medication is prescribed. Typically, the patient and doctor decide what is the best, then the prescription gets sent off to the pharmacy. When the patient goes to pick up the prescription, often they find a different one instead or are told that their health insurance coverage is not covering that prescription. Instead of receiving the best medication for …
Who’s really prescribing medicine? Hint: It’s not doctors.
Physicians are known to be masters of self-sacrifice, and self-control. They undergo years of training and make substantial emotional and financial sacrifices until they complete their training. The reward at the end of the road is a fulfilling job where he or she can treat people who are in need and enjoy the emotional, personal, and financial fruits of their labor.
But is this the reality? At a time when the …
Have physicians finally joined the working class?
As she lay on the gurney telling me she was tired and having vaginal bleeding yet again, I was doing my own biopsy of her medical record.
It stated very clearly that palliative care and hospice had been recommended to her for her end-stage gynecologic cancer. So, why, I’m thinking, highly annoyed, is she now in the ER, late at night, creating problems for me? Why could she just not accept …
A physician’s compassion well has run dry
The business value of medication adherence tools is coming into focus. For years, I remarked that, while we could create a case for why adherence was the right thing to do, we had great difficulty creating the right financial incentives to move these programs from curiosity to scale. That is changing now with the collision in the marketplace of new payment models and exorbitantly priced pharmaceutical products.
The poster child for …
5 obstacles to texting patients
As the process of applying to medical school and residency becomes hyper-competitive, we medical students often feel forced to pursue our passions only in ways that are “high yield.” It may seem counterintuitive, but the further we go in our medical training, the more inertia we seem to have about giving our time and energy to the everyday people in need. We’re so pressed for time from our participation in …
Top 5 reasons why medical students need to volunteer
Someone told me that the reason certain others don’t respect my advocacy on behalf of physicians more is simply that I am a woman. I am seeing this the more I speak up on issues facing doctors these days. It is now the 21st century, and there are a large number of women practicing medicine. In fact, the number of men and women entering medical school these days is nearly …
Eliminate the stereotypes about female doctors
Her 17-year-old legs dangled over the edge of the exam table. She had come for a prescription of oral contraceptives. Her boyfriend, she said, had been patient. He wasn’t ready to be a father, and so they were waiting. But lately he had started to put the pressure on and asked her to come in. She wasn’t eager for this change in their relationship, but it seemed like the next …
Why this physician stopped prescribing birth control
Sometimes an interesting thing happens on patient rounds. Rounds are a traditional exercise in hospitals going back at least a century. In the old days, this meant the physician going from patient to patient. He (it was nearly always he back then) went over the patient’s progress with the bedside nurse, examined the patient, reviewed pertinent test results, made an assessment, decided on a plan for the day, and gave …
A game of broken telephone in the hospital
When I graduated from medical school, my dad gave me several hundred dollars with instructions to buy something special. It was a kind gesture, but the pressure to self-select a meaningful gift was almost too much.
I wanted something to commemorate my transition from student to doctor. Books, stethoscopes, and the like seemed so uninventive. I wanted something for residency that would be …
The pink bag that symbolizes how far this physician has come
If your partner is a doctor or medical student, prepare yourself for dozens — possibly hundreds — of conversations about their career. If you’re lucky, these conversations are pleasant moments in which you get to show pride about your partner’s accomplishments, discuss the challenges openly, or talk about something you have learned as an outsider looking into the medical establishment.
Unfortunately, many of us experience a far more frustrating reality when …
Is your partner a doctor? Be prepared for these destructive comments.
Patients forming an opinion of your practice are doing so in a matter of seconds. And some of the latest research on first impressions, suggest that it may even be within the blink of an eye. Regardless of the length of time, first impressions are powerful and very difficult to reverse. So, if a patient has formed a bad opinion of you and your staff, during the first point of …
Make a good impression on your patients. Here’s how.
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