How listening is a huge part of what we do for our patients

Physician
June 19, 2020

I spent an hour yesterday with a new patient who has complex repaired congenital heart disease. In our initial conversation, it became apparent she and I had differing agendas. I was on a mission to efficiently evaluate her heart, sort out any ongoing issues, document the visit, and then move on to the next patient. Her desire was to tell her story and be listened to. So, in the moment …

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How listening is a huge part of what we do for our patients

How COVID is exposing poor working conditions in the U.S.

Health Policy
June 19, 2020

It has been about three weeks since I’ve had my favorite tortilla. The plant that makes them, located on the lower west side of Chicago, closed after one of its workers died of COVID-19. Unlike workers in the meat-packing industry, the employees of this particular tortilla plant were not forced to go back to work. Instead, the factory closed to perform a thorough cleaning Read more…

How COVID is exposing poor working conditions in the U.S.

Are you a mask wimp? Get over it.

Conditions and Diseases
June 19, 2020

As the reopening was being evaluated, I found myself contemplating the routine use of a mask in public. I was already wearing it 12 hours a day in the hospital. On one of the clinic days, after constantly conversing while wearing the mask, I also found out the hard way that I don’t have the taste buds for non-woven sub-micron thin polypropylene spaghetti. The prospect of wearing one while going …

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Are you a mask wimp? Get over it.

A pathologist’s urgent pandemic message to the public [PODCAST]

Podcast
June 18, 2020
YouTube video

“The events over the last couple of weeks have affected me deeply. Of course, I’m concerned about a novel virus that is infecting and killing people. But, I’m more distraught over the reaction of the people, the response of the state and federal governments, the blatant disregard of science/epidemiology, and the warnings of our physicians on the front lines.

Most of us …

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A pathologist’s urgent pandemic message to the public [PODCAST]

The nation’s best hospitals must remain focused on COVID-19

Conditions and Diseases
June 18, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over

COVID-19 continues to devastate communities across the U.S., with 100,000 deaths and climbing. Health care workers have rushed to the frontlines without hesitation to respond to the needs of our patients. Fortunately, due to social distancing and other public health measures, the coronavirus caseload may be plateauing and even decreasing. As a nation, we have largely avoided the Read more…

The nation’s best hospitals must remain focused on COVID-19

Dissecting systemic racism in health care

Conditions and Diseases
June 18, 2020

A couple of months ago, I had a lecture on the “Principles of Epidemiology and Public Health.” I remember looking at the graphs taken from the American Heart Association and noting that the incidence of developing coronary heart disease or myocardial infarction was higher in black men compared to their white counterparts. I thought to myself, “So this means that race is a risk factor in …

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Dissecting systemic racism in health care

Pediatric emergency care during a time of strict social isolation

Physician
June 18, 2020

I am a pediatric trained emergency physician working in a level 1 trauma center.  Our region is not an epicenter for COVID-19.  Like many pediatric departments, our volumes are returning but were less than half of normal for months.  Social distancing has not only flattened the curve for COVID-19, but it has also made our usual summer viruses all but disappear.  Where are all the enteroviruses?

In pre-COVID times, after a …

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Pediatric emergency care during a time of strict social isolation

When COVID hits memory care

Conditions and Diseases
June 18, 2020

“Have you ever been on a cruise?” Betty asks.

It’s a strange question in the age of COVID-19, where thousands of people have been stranded on large ships over the past few months. I’m a wound physician who rounds at nursing homes, and my gloved hand holds her warm, wrinkled foot. I’m looking at a wound on her ankle that is almost healed.

“I went on a cruise before, but it was …

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When COVID hits memory care

COVID-19 through the eyes of an ophthalmology resident

Physician
June 18, 2020

Since the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 has upended our lives in a turn of events that, just months ago, would have only seemed possible in a science fiction movie. What is traditionally an exciting time of year for medical trainees has instead become a time of tremendous uncertainty and fear.

Our clinics have grinded to a halt. As residents, we rely heavily on our patients to learn our craft; each patient …

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COVID-19 through the eyes of an ophthalmology resident

A physician in the venture capital world [PODCAST]

Podcast
June 17, 2020
YouTube video

“Most physicians have spent decades training for the day that they see their first patient or perform their first surgery. This extended time involved to become a physician does not leave a lot of spare time in college or medical school for most physicians to take any significant coursework in economics, finance, or investing. Yet, physicians have a tremendous amount of …

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A physician in the venture capital world [PODCAST]

How NEJM’s ethical recommendations on the fair allocation of scarce medical resources perpetuate inequity

Health Policy
June 17, 2020

This past March, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published six ethical recommendations to guide the allocation of scarce medical resources during COVID-19. In their second recommendation, they stated that “critical COVID-19 interventions — testing, PPE, ICU beds, ventilators, therapeutics, and vaccines — should go first to frontline health care workers and others who care for ill patients.” This makes sense because health care workers …

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How NEJM’s ethical recommendations on the fair allocation of scarce medical resources perpetuate inequity

Lessons learned from my MPH gap year

Medical Education
June 17, 2020

Over the course of medical school, I developed a fascination for public health and finding new ways to optimize care delivery to patients. This eventually resulted in me deciding to take a gap year between my third and fourth year to complete a Masters of Public Health. I originally applied to four programs based on what would fit in well with my medical school schedule. On …

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Lessons learned from my MPH gap year

Understand your resident contract: What you don’t know may hurt you

Physician
June 17, 2020

When I matched into anesthesiology residency in 2002, I assumed that the entire four years of training were guaranteed to me, barring any gross failure on my part.  A package deal, essentially. I hadn’t heard of anyone not finishing.

For me, residency was exhaustingly tolerable, yet gratefully formative – interspersed with warm camaraderie, the occasional difficult patient or frustrating attending, satisfying progress, and finite episodes of survivable misery. I had a …

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Understand your resident contract: What you don’t know may hurt you

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Health care’s role in the fight for transgender health

Physician
June 17, 2020

On June 12, 2016, during LGBTQ+ pride month, a gunman opened fire inside Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, an LGBTQ+ venue, killing 49 and wounding 53 others. Four years later, on June 12, 2020, the LGBTQ+ community mourned the deaths of Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells and Riah Milton, two black transgender women found murdered in Pennsylvania and Ohio, respectively. That very same day, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Read more…

Health care’s role in the fight for transgender health

What could go wrong with the coronavirus vaccine?

Conditions and Diseases
June 17, 2020

What could go wrong with the coronavirus vaccine? I have opinions. I am not a virologist or an infectious disease specialist. I am just a doctor who has been following the pandemic in the journals and in the newspapers. But I am worried because there is a lot that could go wrong.

There are the usual problems that we all know about. The vaccine will not work because it does not …

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What could go wrong with the coronavirus vaccine?

The healing power of art [PODCAST]

Podcast
June 16, 2020
YouTube video

“Each morning before the doctors came in for rounds; I’d paint feverishly whatever abstraction came to mind and what evolved from my situation. When I completed my pieces, I felt like I had not only gotten out my frustrations and worry, but also found a place of joy and gratitude. I would put each canvas outside my hospital room, and soon …

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The healing power of art [PODCAST]

Medical students have the responsibility to correct racial inequities

Health Policy
June 16, 2020

Before I walked hospital hallways as a medical student, I walked high school hallways as a science teacher in Houston’s 5th Ward.  Each year, the most difficult time for me was graduation. The pride of watching my students, most African American, achieve a well-earned success was mixed with the sadness of losing incredible people as they moved on. Also mixed in was the humbling understanding of the incredible disparity between …

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Medical students have the responsibility to correct racial inequities

A social worker remembers a tortured soul

Conditions and Diseases
June 16, 2020

By profession, Donna Dillon is a photographer.  She wouldn’t like to be described as a “professional” anything, but the quality of her photos make her deserving of the term.

But disarray and inertia characterize Donna now, by her own description. “My life’s work is stuffed into little places, and I sit relatively immobile, before the prospect of the bequeathment.  I have set up a will, but it is sort of desperate, …

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A social worker remembers a tortured soul

There’s a code for pain, but what’s the code for suffering?

Conditions and Diseases
June 16, 2020

Opiates relieve pain and can transport people to their apparent happy place. So does marijuana.  Lyrica, the seizure-turned-pain medication, caused enough of a buzz in early study participants that it became a controlled substance. The anesthetic ketamine is now used for treatment-resistant depression.

Years ago, we had to be very specific about the location and classification of our patients’ pain. When pain then became a self-reported vital sign and chronic opioid …

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There’s a code for pain, but what’s the code for suffering?

We can’t breathe: black and brown trauma in COVID-19

Conditions and Diseases
June 16, 2020

The sirens wail as the ambulance approaches, bouncing off New York City skyscrapers and empty storefronts. They swirl around one building, sweeping up old paint chips and dust from centuries-old stairs. Inside on the third floor, a family paces around in panic. Their matriarch fights for air. The youngest holds her hand and softly sings her favorite song in her ear. She tries to stay calm, focusing on the walls …

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We can’t breathe: black and brown trauma in COVID-19

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