With doctors losing respect, perhaps it’s time to expose medicine’s dark side

Physician
May 22, 2016

The following is paraphrased documentation, authored by a physician I know, regarding an intoxicated patient in the ER:

1 a.m.: Patient is telling nurse, “Before I leave, I need everyone’s name for my lawsuit. Tell the phlebotomist that if he’s good, he’ll get a cut.”

1:40 a.m.: Patient is making inappropriate sexual comments and is verbally aggressive with medical staff. He is advised to stay in bed.

2:02 a.m.: Patient (who had been sleeping comfortably) wakes up and …

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With doctors losing respect, perhaps it’s time to expose medicine’s dark side

The absurd cost of becoming a doctor

Medical Education
April 29, 2016

I start this article with a disclaimer: I am not here to comment on the decreasing salaries of physicians or the knowledge that I will never get paid the way the prior generation of doctors got paid. It is hard for me (and the American public) to feel bad for anybody making more than $200,000 a year when the median household income is in the mid-$40,000 range.

What this article is …

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The absurd cost of becoming a doctor

What is wrong with medical students today? 

Medical Education
March 28, 2016

This question has been circulating in the academic medical world for years. As an intern and resident, I would hear complaints about how “unready” they seemed. The grievances often include adjectives like ill-prepared, lazy,  or uninterested.  The complaints have burgeoned over time, and the examples are numerous in my institution: Students show up late to rounds with coffee in their hands; one med student had the gall to go directly to the attending and …

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What is wrong with medical students today? 

A patient is remembered. He lived life the way he wanted.

Physician
January 5, 2016

“Donald passed away.”

We had been sitting in the chiefs’ office with a few of the attendings who had all had Donald (name changed to protect privacy) on their service at one time or another. Everybody exhaled a collective sigh, soaking in the sting of the knowledge of Don’s death; then, within a few seconds, everybody had smiles on their faces.  The smiles were born out of a personal experience with him in …

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A patient is remembered. He lived life the way he wanted.

Are we training a generation of soft doctors?

Medical Education
December 17, 2015

I watch as my almost-2-year-old daughter awkwardly climbs the stairs. I do not hold her hand, but I do not turn my back on her either. She is still clumsy, and her little-bowed legs often miss their targeted landing spots. She holds on to the rail with a vice grip that steadies each monumental step forward and upward.

Every so often she wobbles as she miscalculates the distances and her toes …

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Are we training a generation of soft doctors?

Superhero doctors are what we aspire to be

Medical Education
August 3, 2015

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We live in a time of great cynicism and skepticism. We seem to see only the mundane and boring in even the most interesting and spectacular things.  The electrical rhythm of the heart that pulses through cardiac tissue and results in a coordinated muscle contraction that effectively ejects blood to the rest of the body for appropriate oxygen delivery is just … a …

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Superhero doctors are what we aspire to be