Florence Nightingale was among the first nurses who started wearing a nurse’s cap.
The cap was derived by nuns and represented those caring for the sick. Hair was neatly tightened into a bun and covered by the cap.
Back then becoming a nurse was typically seen as a female profession, but men were allowed to become nurses too. In 1930, only one percent of RNs nationwide were male.
Growing up in the 1950s …
My battle against the nurse’s cap
After teaching biology and nutrition for three years, I began my journey back to my original dream: a career in medicine. The most common sense approach to me was to return back to college and start taking the necessary pre-requisites to apply for medical school. My original major in college begin special education, I had no previous college-level science background, so I began taking introductory biology and chemistry at a …
The post-baccalaureate pre-health program experience
“I drank beer with my friends. Almost everyone did.”
Alcohol has become constitutional to American culture: “grabbing a drink” after work, happy hour, cheers before meals, on New Year’s, or just because. Our society’s normalization of drinking creates a slippery slope toward excessive alcohol use. Unhealthy alcohol use is rampant: one in six Americans drinks excessively four times a month, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Almost thirty percent …
I hate repeating myself. It’s an impatient quality, but I wish everyone could just hear me the first time. With a surgical personality, I prefer to convey things in the most efficient way possible, i.e., “Blade!” or “Kelly, please.” So when folks ask me to repeat myself repeatedly, I feel my inner voice protesting, “This is so inefficient, ahh!”
If someone repeats something they have already told me, and catches me …
Why physicians should repeat themselves
From the beginning of medical school, one of the first things “instructional videos” that we had to watch during orientation was about “social media” and what “not to do.” There began this stigma, and it was frowned upon to use social media if you were a clinician.
There are the obvious things that physicians should not do, such as post private information about patients, show a patient’s face without their permission, …
A call to clinicians: Contrary to what you’ve been taught, use social media
An excerpt from Rethinking Health Care Ethics.
Health professionals have not been well served, or at least not well enough served, by the academic community of bioethicists — the philosophers, theologians, lawyers, and social scientists of various sorts who have come to dominate, worldwide, the diverse fields of health care ethics over the last half-century. The theoretical, philosophically oriented approaches of bioethicists generally leave clinicians feeling somewhat at a …
Why bioethicists fall short of connecting with clinicians
This article is sponsored by Careers by KevinMD.com.
Whether you recently completed your residency as an emergency medicine (EM) physician or are ready to move on from your current position, potential locations for work are undoubtedly a big factor in determining which emergency physician jobs you’re willing to consider.
If you have children, location is especially important, because you want …
5 things emergency physicians should consider when looking for jobs
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 32-year-old man is evaluated for an intermittent pruritic rash of 8 years’ duration. Medical history is significant for mild persistent asthma. His only medications are an albuterol inhaler and an inhaled glucocorticoid.
On physical examination, vital signs are normal. There is mild xerosis with erythematous plaques on the bilateral …
MKSAP: 32-year-old man with an intermittent pruritic rash
I’m often asked to write and speak about being a woman physician. I don’t know that any of my male physician colleagues have ever been asked to talk about being a male physician. Many hospital systems have women in medicine groups, and there’s now a National Women Physicians Day. Again, don’t know of the same for male physicians. There’s a part of me that struggles with this, but I …
The personal and professional challenges of women physicians
I am certain that many of you might be familiar with the intelligent, vibrant young lady named Brittany Maynard. Brittany’s story was so compelling to the world that it reached the most outstanding and historic numbers through digital media. Ms. Maynard was only 29, diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and decided that she would end her own life “when the time seemed right.” Maynard was an advocate …
Digital advances in the medical aid in dying movement
In a New York Post article dated January 23, 2019, the author states how Americans without health care insurance hit 13.7 percent. This 2.8 percent increase means an additional seven-million Americans lack health coverage as noted by the Gallup survey period.
This is not far behind the 18 percent recorded just before the Obamacare mandate in 2014.
Everyone is blamed in this article except the culprits. Do you think for one moment …
The true cost of being uninsured in America
When I first turned to writing, I had no knowledge of the field of narrative medicine.
It took four years of medical school, three years of residency, three years of subspecialty fellowship and over a decade in practice before I learned of it. (That’s more than 20 years, for those counting.)
Throughout, I’ve struggled to hold fast to my core belief that the key to patient care is to allow the telling …
6 resources on the power of narrative medicine
My story makes even the hardened among us cringe … but I am not here to tell you that story. My real story begins after.
In order to stand up for my values, I recently walked away from a booming practice. What I had built felt sacred to me, almost miraculous. As a pediatrician, I realize it is no small matter that parents entrust me with the care of their children. …
A physician leaves her practice and finds beauty in the struggle
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Here is a simple question: In terms of social media engagements, who is the most popular athlete in the world?
Super Bowl sensation and apparent immortal Tom Brady? Nope.
Philanthropist Lebron James? Not even close.
International superstar Cristiano Ronaldo? It used to be.
For those of you now drawing a blank, unable to conjure up a face to fit the name, go ask your kids if they have ever heard …
Twitch, Fortnite, and the emergence of eSports medicine
If you are a physician or know a physician or have ever visited one, chances are you have probably heard them complain about technology in health care. More to the point, they are likely to be complaining about the one piece of technology that affects their lives minute-to-minute: the electronic health record (EHR). To get a sense of how central EHRs are to our daily routines, consider that physicians now …
The secret to making AI work for physicians
Last summer, I published a post called “Alternative Medicine is Kicking Our Ass.” In it, I focused on one particularly slick alt-thyroid site that has done a masterful job of sowing doubt regarding the advice mainstream physicians give to our patients about the thyroid. Not only that, but the site has called into question our competency as doctors, citing “evidence” that supposedly proves (it doesn’t) we …
Mainstream medicine needs to play offense
We don’t talk much about passion in medicine anymore.
What is your passion for medicine? What was it that sparked your initial desire to pursue this career instead of another? What is the impact you are called to make as a doctor?
I was speaking with a friend who is not in medicine and asked why he picked his chosen field. He is knowledgeable and skilled at many different things. He admitted …
What is your passion in medicine?
Love avocados, but hate cutting them. They are slippery little rascals and are responsible for many nasty hand injuries.
Stab wounds from using knives in the kitchen are not fun but are reported daily. Accidental self-inflicted knife injuries to digits are a common cause of tendon and nerve injury requiring hand surgery.
Many of us do not think about how much you use “your hands for your senses.”
Until you lose that ability …
How to cut avocados: tips from an orthopedic surgeon
My husband recently found a bag of breast milk in the freezer as he scrounged for dinner ingredients. This milk was pumped over four years ago for my third baby who turns five next week. Just like I did for her older siblings, I religiously pumped breast milk at work until her first birthday. On the day that she turned one, I stopped lugging my pump bag to work, stopped …
When this doctor and mom stopped breastfeeding
Chicken tikka masala, two samosas and a bowl of yellow dal steam on my hotel table. There is no fight over the last samosa — they all belong to me. The room is quiet and peaceful. My pager does not ring. The paper plates do not need washing. No child clamors for my attention. After savoring dinner, the internal debate starts over whether I should work out in the hotel …
Is locum tenens your dream gig?
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