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How to stop medical students from becoming jaded

Education

June 12, 2013

Recent research suggests that medical students lose empathy during the third (the main clinical year) of school.

Talking with end of the year third year students might make you think differently. Understanding the psychological changes that likely occur during the third year should make you think differently.

Medicine seems easy during the pre-clinical years. You get smokers to stop and prevent COPD and coronary artery disease. Patients just need to listen to …

The spiritual bond between two souls

Eva S. Vertelney, MD

Physician

June 12, 2013

Being a part time hospitalist, I am frequently on overnight call in the hospital, spending the night admitting sick patients from the emergency room, or dealing with any calamities that happen on the medical floors. I would have to say the that the most dreaded events are: “Code blue” (this means a hospitalized patient in cardiac or respiratory arrest waiting to be resuscitated), followed closely by a nurse calling with: …

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The spiritual bond between two souls

What should a surgeon do with an impossible case?

David Gelber, MD

Physician

June 12, 2013

For the first time in my career I asked myself that question. Over the years, I’ve had more than my share of difficult cases. I’ve had patients with life threatening conditions whom I wished I could offer more than to just shake my head and speak empty words of encouragement. They stare back at me and I see their eyes full of hope. How many times have been forced to …

Being a plastic surgeon requires a lot of explaining

Peter Neligan, MD

Physician

June 11, 2013

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A new crop of medical students will begin a residency in plastic surgery this summer. They have worked long and hard to secure these coveted spots. As a service to them and the profession, I wanted to take this opportunity to help make their path a little easier by offering a bit of advice.

When asked what you do, simply say that …

A psychiatric disorder or a profound lack of discipline in our kids?

Greg Smith, MD

Physician

June 11, 2013

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It is hard to see a child in pain.

I have seen quite a few children in the emergency departments of South Carolina in the past three years, more than I could have imagined just a while ago.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am not a child psychiatrist by trade. Like any general psychiatrist, my training provided me with didactic …

Why surgical instruments are the way they are

Sid Schwab, MD

Physician

June 10, 2013

Surgical instruments-big

Next in a continuing series.

There’s a reason for the cliche — surgeon barks out the name of an instrument, scrub nurse whacks it into the hand. The reason is this: when you are focused on a particular area — especially if it’s one in which danger lies — you don’t want to look away. If you need to change …

Grilling with aluminum foil: What are the health risks?

Dr. Charles

Conditions

June 10, 2013

As the weather heats up and the allure of grilling returns, it is important to consider some of the potential health risks. One of the great joys of my life is “manning” the grill – beer in hand, wafting smoke rising through the air, a delicious anticipation building. It seems worth the risk of consuming carcinogens present in the smoke …

How to know if your baby has autism

Naline Lai, MD and Julie Kardos, MD

Conditions

June 8, 2013

Autism is a communication disorder where children have difficulty relating to other people. Pediatricians watch for speech delay as a sign of autism. Even before your child is expected to start talking, around a year old, you can watch for communication milestones. Problems attaining these milestones may indicate autism or other disorders such as hearing loss, vision loss, isolated language delay, or other developmental delays.

By six weeks of age, your …

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How to know if your baby has autism

Prescription labels need to come in languages other than English

David Margolius, MD

Meds

June 8, 2013

As the saying goes, “With great power comes great responsibility.” That applies to physicians when prescribing medications, but it also should apply to pharmacies when they’re dispensing medications.

In December, after seven years of exams, lectures and rounds, I received my medical license. Finally, I had the power to prescribe medications without the co-signature of my supervisor. “Be careful,” she advised, “remember the …

Is medicine a choice or a calling?

Eric J. Keller, MD

Education

June 7, 2013

Over the last couple months, I have often been asked what I plan to do as a recent college graduate. My response has been that I will be attending medical school in Chicago.

“Oh! Medical school!” many exclaim as their eyes light up, “So you’re going to be a rich doctor.”

This response as well as most others I have received seemed to imply that medicine is an ideal profession if one …

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Is medicine a choice or a calling?

The ultimate DIY project: Create your own EMR

Rob Lamberts, MD

Tech

June 7, 2013

There was a hole in the wall of our bathroom that was a painful reminder of a bad encounter with a plumber. Yes, that hole has been there about a year, and it has been on my to d0 list for the duration, daring me to show if I inherited any of the fix it genes I got from my father. Why not hire someone to come fix it? I …

Is self-rationing of medications a good or a bad thing?

Trudy Lieberman

Meds

June 6, 2013

In America, the conventional wisdom is that we don’t ration health care. But we do, and there’s no better example than patients rationing themselves when it comes to the medicines they take.

Recently, a young twenty-something I know had a nagging cough—seasonal allergies, her doctor said and prescribed a generic medicine for asthma and allergies. She did not fill the prescription—the $160 price tag was too steep. Although she had health …

Letting your infant cry it out: Will it hurt your baby?

Roy Benaroch, MD

Conditions

June 5, 2013

Jess, like many parents, has been hearing conflicting information about what crying can do to your baby.

She wrote: “So, my husband and I accidentally let our kiddo (5.5 months) cry it out. So of course, I’m spending all sorts of time on Google finding out that I’ve caused long-term damage to my son and he’ll be more likely to get ADHD and …

Improving informed consent for resuscitation without playing God

Janice Boughton, MD

Physician

June 4, 2013

To resuscitate or not to resuscitate, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to beat the heck out of a person on his or her way out in the hope of saving his or her one precious life, or to allow death to proceed at its own pace with expectation of a peaceful passing.

The United States has come a long way in the last 2 decades since 1991 when the …

Doctors think about their patients all the time after they leave

Jennifer Stella, MD

Physician

June 3, 2013

As a third-year med student, I was doing an ER shift when the call came through our dispatch: 56-year-old man, status epilepticus, being flown in from Yosemite, 10 minutes out. I watched the residents snap into a semi-ordered chaos. Ten crucial minutes. Prepping the trauma bay. Anticipating acute management, who was going to do it, half-tying the yellow paper gowns. Anyone who had looked tired didn’t anymore.

We raced in the …

Address the financial burden of medical treatment

Yousuf Zafar, MD

Physician

June 1, 2013

Everyone is talking about health care costs these days. The presentations usually start with a chart of rising health care expenditures, the tip of the line pointing skywards. Next come exhaustive (and exhausting) tables, more charts, all punctuated with a final shrug of uncertainty from the speaker: What is the solution to rising costs? Of course, there is not just one.

But in the morass of data, we can lose the …

Being a psych patient in the emergency department

Greg Smith, MD

Physician

June 1, 2013

So you’re in the emergency department, probably in a small, windowless room, dressed in paper (or, if you’re lucky, crazy green cotton cloth) scrubs. You’re lying in a bed with a plastic mattress and scratchy sheets staring across the room at the door that has a small chicken-wire reinforced tempered glass windowlette in it and is ajar just enough to let you see the shiny black shoe of the security …

Why you shouldn’t give medical advice on Twitter

Iltifat Husain, MD

Social media

May 31, 2013

A few weeks ago I was following an online discussion conducted by a widely followed health site.

During the discussion, they had a physician who was giving out wellness advice to users via Twitter.

That physician had one tweet in particular that terrified me.

As the above screenshot shows, one tweet mentioned that when in doubt regarding …

Please don’t call me a hospitalist

Suneel Dhand, MD

Physician

May 29, 2013

I must confess that I love my job as a hospital medicine doctor. To me, very few specialties in medicine can be as rewarding as the one I’ve had the privilege of practicing for the last five years. We manage an array of medical illnesses, interact with staff from across the hospital in every different specialty, and follow our patients all the way through their—hopefully very short—hospitalization. We take ownership …

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Please don’t call me a hospitalist

Migraine is very much a childhood disorder

Roy Benaroch, MD

Conditions

May 29, 2013

“My wife gets migraines—really bad ones—and now my daughter seems to be getting them too. She’s only 7! Is she just copying what her mom does? Can a child really start getting migraines?”

Oh, yes they can. Migraine is very much a childhood disorder. About 5% of adults have migraines, and half of them started having their migraines as kids.

As in adults, migraines in children can be severe and debilitating. However, …