Aaron Grubner is a pediatric emergency medicine physician.

Night shift weight loss: a practical fasting guide for physicians

Physician
March 27, 2026

Working the night shift is brutal. Circadian rhythms are disrupted, backup help in true emergencies is limited, and even simple things like labs or imaging can take far longer than they should. But one of the biggest challenges is late-night snacking.

There is something about the combination of darkness, fatigue, and intermittent slow periods that makes it ridiculously easy to inhale a two-pound bag of potato chips without thinking twice. Research …

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Night shift weight loss: a practical fasting guide for physicians

The quiet grief behind hospital walls

Physician
July 15, 2025

The slow beeping of the monitor comes to a halt and someone eventually shuts it off.

Click clack.

The machines are quiet now. I take one more look at the innocent, boyish young face and wonder what kind of life he had led. I leave the room, along with the rest of the team. A hand draws the curtain closed.

Death.

Quite literally, the most final force on Earth. The permanent, irreversible cessation of …

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The quiet grief behind hospital walls

A surprising example of how medicine is learned from our patients

Medical Education
May 25, 2018

“The patient in room 17 needs an IV line! Hey, have you ever put in an IV before?!”

Everybody looked at me at once. I tried my best to maintain a confident outer appearance. But I’ll admit, I was caught off guard. I thought back to my attempted IV insertions throughout my anesthesia rotation earlier in the year. I struggled with getting the IV line smoothly into the vein. I followed …

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A surprising example of how medicine is learned from our patients