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Is debt-free medical school a financial blunder for doctors?

Physician Finance

August 3, 2018

Education can be expensive. Higher education can be even more costly. Even partial scholarships can be deceptive as one might opt for a more expensive school for the sake of redeeming “free money.”

As a student, I had no financial understanding of return on investment when I was considering higher education. All in, I plowed through more than a quarter million dollars in my college and medical school after substantial scholarships …

Doctors should let their patients’ religious beliefs shine

Christopher Zalesky

Medical Education

August 3, 2018

On one of my first days of medical school, I shuffled into a lecture hall surrounded by professional looking individuals as we had done the days before. This similar routine persisted for a few days as we became oriented to our new school. Leadership had indoctrinated us with professionalism, administrative staff had terrified us to the point of avoiding any patient information for fear of being sent wherever they send …

We should all care when patients get too many Z-paks

Linda Girgis, MD

Medications

August 2, 2018

Many people seem to believe that the Z-pak possesses magical qualities. Patients come in requesting it for the common cold, because it worked for them in the past. Not only do many believe it cures the common cold, but they think it can treat any infection. Have a urinary tract infection? Just ask your doctor to prescribe a Z-pak! Sniffles got you under the weather? Do the same!

Anyone who believes …

The problem with first-person reporting of unproven interventions

Mary Chris Jaklevic

Medications

August 2, 2018

Houston Chronicle reporter Craig Hlavaty recently treated readers to a first-person account of getting an intravenous (IV) vitamin infusion inside a van parked outside his house.

The article, “Feeling the drip, drip, drip of the mobile IV craze,” related how a needle was inserted into his arm, “just where a tattooed lightning bolt strikes.”

Hlavaty extolled the cool rush of liquid into his veins:

After a few minutes, a great euphoria hits …

Can empathy be taught to physicians?

Christopher Johnson, MD

Medical Education

August 2, 2018

We want competent physicians, but we also want compassionate ones. How do we get them? Is it nature or is it nurture? Is it more important to search out more compassionate students, or should we instill compassion somehow in the ones we start along the training pipeline? I think the answer lies in nurturing what nature has already put there.

My background is in pediatric critical care, which I have practiced …

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Can empathy be taught to physicians?

A new digital divide is keeping older adults from accessing digital health

Lisa Gualtieri, PhD, ScM, Jeff Phillips, MD, Sandra Rosenbluth, MS, and Steph Synoracki

Health Technology

August 2, 2018

The digital divide used to be about who had internet access and who didn’t, with broad implications for every aspect of life — especially health care. But digital health innovation is growing rapidly, with projections showing a $536.6 billion market by the end of 2025 compared to the $179.6 billion market at the end of 2016. So, what does that mean for the digital divide? We …

Persistence is the secret sauce of success

DocG, MD

Physician Finance

August 2, 2018

My daughter had her first track meet this weekend. We showed up to a field house at the local high school and watched as dozens of kids and hundreds of parents took their places. The competitions spanned from high jump to mile run. Fifty-yard dash to shot put. Watching these fourth and fifth graders compete was pure joy. We marveled at the speed and agility as the winners sprinted towards …

Reflecting after the first year of medical school

Orly Farber

Medical Education

August 1, 2018

I left the library at 10 p.m. the night before the last exam of my first year of med school. As I hopped on my bike, I took comfort in my typical pre-test refrain: I’m done studying. I did everything I could. Of course, I’m not really done studying: I still have three years of school left packed with end-of-block finals, end-of-rotation exams, and the behemoths of the medical testing world, …

Nurses are always right. And 28 other tips for new residents.

Edwin Leap, MD

Physician

August 1, 2018

This summer, new resident physicians begin their training all across the United States. Today, our future family physicians and pediatricians, neurosurgeons and emergency physicians, plastic surgeons and laser tattoo removal specialists (OK, not really a specialty, just a sideline) will begin learning how to be physicians, having completed four years of expensive college and four years of even more expensive medical school. Anxiety-filled and debt-ridden, they will embark on four …

How this physician parent teaches his kids about money

Rogue Dad, MD

Physician Finance

August 1, 2018

Let’s be honest — what I don’t know about parenting is astounding. I’m a pediatrician and have three kids, and it’s amazing what I still don’t know.

Every so often I hear a parenting idea (or come up with one) that seems perfect. Easy to implement and imparts both clear short and long-term lessons.

Implementing new-age parenting techniques makes me feel good, even if in reality I spend most of my parenting …

Side hustles are the best kind of asset protection

James Turner, MD

Physician Finance

August 1, 2018

My oldest girl and I love watching birds. We usually watch the birds right outside our backdoor while they eat from our bird feeder. As we were watching one day, it amazed me how comfortable the birds were jumping from post to post on the feeder or from branch to branch on the trees. Often times at a distance taller than the bird itself. Why would they take this risk and …

Clinician burnout: Be part of the solution

Sasha K. Shillcutt, MD

Physician

July 31, 2018

I was recently interviewed by someone on the topic of clinician burnout. The interviewee asked me how I respond to those who say that burnout does not exist, is being overstated, or is the result of a weaker generation of practicing physicians.

I find this difference in opinion interesting. Most of the time, when a physician complains to me about the focus on clinical burnout, they are 1) of an older …

Doctors need to lead the way on divestment from fossil fuels

Mona Sarfaty, MD, MPH

Health Policy

July 31, 2018

In the recent weeks we’ve seen frequent headlines alerting people around the country to dangerous heat waves. Physicians and nurses see these headlines and the human results of the heatwaves in the form of heat illness, people burdened with lung ailments and suffering from deteriorating air quality, and a range of individual harms brought on by wildfires and torrential downpours. Current trends in extreme temperatures are alarming and clearly linked …

A blood test to detect melanoma? Not so fast.

J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, MD

Conditions and Diseases

July 31, 2018

The headline scrolling across the bottom of an evening news show certainly grabbed my attention: a new blood test had the possibility of detecting early melanoma and saving thousands of lives. And then there were more reports elevating this early research report to a point that I became quite interested — and frankly concerned.

News flash: The research is far from being shown to have proven value in the early diagnosis of …

The misguided expectation of eliminating pain

Michael Kirsch, MD

Physician

July 31, 2018

I am against all forms of bodily pain, both foreign and domestic. I wish the world were pain-free. When I am suffering from even a routine headache, I want immediate relief just like everyone else. The medical approach to pain control has changed dramatically even during my own career. When I started practicing a few decades ago, the strategy was pain reduction. We gave narcotics for very few indications such …

Is double health insurance coverage better?

Nicholas Fogelson, MD

Physician Finance

July 30, 2018

You have just gotten a job offer that includes health insurance. You’re lucky enough that your spouse has great family insurance already, but hey that health insurance is going to cover the cracks in the deductible and co-insurance, so you feel great about that double coverage as you sign your contract.

Well, you just got scammed. That is, double coverage is a scam, and you would have been far better off …

The double-edged power of the medications we prescribe

Hans Duvefelt, MD

Medications

July 30, 2018

My patient, a rugged sixty year old with massively muscular forearms, gray chest hair at the V of his denim shirt, and a voice that suggested years of liquor and unfiltered cigarettes, lowered his voice and leaned forward.

“I’m not usually scared of anything, but for three nights now, ever since I started taking the Levaquin for this pneumonia, I have had the most horrific nightmares. I can’t even talk about …

Is going to medical school a wise financial decision?

Wall Street Physician, MD

Physician Finance

July 30, 2018

It is no secret that medical school is getting very expensive. Over the past 20 years, the cost of medical school has greatly outpaced the rate of inflation, and medical school debt is rapidly rising.

The average medical student now graduates with over $192,000 in student loans, but with the cost of attendance for the most expensive private medical schools approaching $100,000, there are some physicians who are finishing residency with $300,000 or …

Urgent care centers prescribe more antibiotics. Why is that?

Roy Benaroch, MD

Conditions and Diseases

July 30, 2018

Urgent care centers are way ahead in prescribing unnecessary, potentially harmful antibiotics that are doing no one any good – at least no patients any good. The owners of the urgent care centers are the ones who are benefitting. And you and your family are being bilked, misled, and harmed.

A recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at the proportion of antibiotic prescriptions that were made for viral respiratory …

The simple, powerful question doctors should ask their patients

Suneel Dhand, MD

Physician

July 29, 2018

As physicians, we are used to asking our patients lots and lots of questions. It’s our job to elicit information, listen, and then come up with a management plan. There’s a standard script every doctor goes through, based on the science of medicine, and we usually have this memorized to a tee. And that’s all very well and good. However, as with many things in life — especially those that …

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