We hear the same stats all the time. Burnout. Alcoholism. Suicide. Divorce. When compared to the rest of the population, physicians are basically twice as prone to everything undesirable. And while medicine is strenuous regardless of gender, female physicians leave medicine at higher rates, largely because how we practice medicine was created by and for men (with stay-at-home wives).
But when I was on the …
Read more…
Think all the way back to your grade school years. Did you know that your personality traits were starting to be honed for the work you do today? Let me give you some examples about myself and see if you can relate.
I remember the praise and exhilaration of being the only kid in the class to get a 100 percent on an extremely difficult second-grade spelling test. My teacher told …
Read more…
Hippocrates is quoted to have said, “Where there is love of medicine, there is love of humankind.” But in today’s health care, is there still a love of medicine? Does our practice demonstrate a love of humankind? I must admit, as a physician I don’t see us always exhibiting a love of medicine. And if we do not love medicine, are we also failing to love humankind?
Walk into any hospital …
Read more…
I quit medicine. I was five months out of residency, and I was leaving medicine. I had dedicated my heart, soul, several years of my life along with weekends, holidays, special events, and my children’s first words to this honorable profession. Medicine was never suppose to “just be” my job. It was suppose to be my calling, and it had betrayed me.
I was finally a full fledged physician, and I …
Read more…