Jordan Grumet, MD

An internal medicine physician, host of the Earn & Invest Podcast.

187 articles on KevinMD · 2 podcast episodes

jordangrumet.com

Articles, page 2

Physician voices

What do physicians worry about?

Jordan Grumet, MD

February 13, 2017Feb 13, 2017

To say that there is no fear in the examining room is an inaccuracy. I'm not only talking patients here. Physicians may harbor just as much worry and discontent. There are the old standbys of course: The swat team of…

To say that there is no fear in the examining room is an inaccuracy. I’m not only talking patients here. Physicians may harbor just as much worry and discontent. There are the old standbys of course: The swat team of malpractice attorneys lounging in the waiting room ready to pounce or the old demon of misdiagnosis and the consequences that may follow.

Few of us talk about that sinking feeling which …

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What do physicians worry about?

Physician voices

How do I fix communication with my patients?

Jordan Grumet, MD

February 6, 2017Feb 6, 20173

There is a basic communication gap between you and me. How could there not be? It's not what you expect. I say you have cancer, or heart failure, or emphysema. Full stop. A conversation ensues. This is not what I'm…

There is a basic communication gap between you and me. How could there not be? It’s not what you expect. I say you have cancer, or heart failure, or emphysema. Full stop. A conversation ensues. This is not what I’m talking about.

It’s more like when I report to you a series of normal lab results, and at the end flippantly mention a slight elevation of the white blood cell count. …

Physician voices

This is how doctors evolve

Jordan Grumet, MD

January 30, 2017Jan 30, 2017

You won't at first. But then, you will. It will start innocently. Probably even before medical school. You will have a morbid curiosity about passing ambulances and motor vehicle accidents. Your original empathy for the victim will disappear when you…

You won’t at first. But then, you will.

It will start innocently. Probably even before medical school. You will have a morbid curiosity about passing ambulances and motor vehicle accidents. Your original empathy for the victim will disappear when you begin to think of them as patients … as test cases.

The commodification accelerates during the early years of medical school. Anatomy, pathology and physiology provide you a vocabulary to replace human …

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This is how doctors evolve

Physician voices

Why this doctor no longer loves being a physician

Jordan Grumet, MD

January 25, 2017Jan 25, 20177

I have a breathtakingly difficult confession to make. A confession that on its face seems rather innocuous but in many ways shakes the foundations of who I always thought I was, and how I identify myself. I no longer love…

I no longer love being a physician.

There — I said it. I winced even as I strung the words together to write the sentence. You see, to admit this is almost inconceivable. So much of …

Physician voices

Barren walls: When passion becomes a business

Jordan Grumet, MD

January 17, 2017Jan 17, 2017

I bought my first house a few days before starting my second year of residency in St Louis. It was a townhome: two bedrooms, one and a half baths, hardwood floors and lots of wall space. So much wall space,…

After visiting some local art galleries, I came to two conclusions. I knew exactly what …

Physician voices

I’m sorry your mom died, but I cannot help you now. Here’s why.

Jordan Grumet, MD

January 12, 2017Jan 12, 20176

Dear Mrs. J, I would like to express my deepest condolences on the passing of your mother. She was a magnificent woman, and I had the pleasure of being her doctor for almost a decade. It was a pleasure. During…

Dear Mrs. J,

I would like to express my deepest condolences on the passing of your mother. She was a magnificent woman, and I had the pleasure of being her doctor for almost a decade. It was a pleasure. During our short visits, she regaled me with stories of childhood and often gently sprinkled in advice gleaned from years of experience. Even as she began to decline, we would sit together …

Physician voices

We’re all shepherds helping others move through life

Jordan Grumet, MD

January 6, 2017Jan 6, 2017

Mathew preferred using the more biblical term "shepherd." After all, he labored his flock through pastoral pastures and meandering meadows. His parishioners, of course, were sheep and not people. After years of leading them, he could discern subtle differences: the…

Mathew preferred using the more biblical term “shepherd.” After all, he labored his flock through pastoral pastures and meandering meadows. His parishioners, of course, were sheep and not people.

After years of leading them, he could discern subtle differences: the slope of a forehead, the stutter of a step or the variation in bleat. He had a distinct name for every animal in his flock of thousands.

Although Mathew preferred isolation, he …

Physician voices

The data was suffering. And it cleaved at this doctor’s soul.

Jordan Grumet, MD

January 3, 2017Jan 3, 2017

The notion began early in computer science class during Jason's freshman year. The professor had noticed a certain elegance and zeal in his work and suggested medicine. That was in the days of the giants when clinicians were tied to…

The notion began early in computer science class during Jason’s freshman year. The professor had noticed a certain elegance and zeal in his work and suggested medicine. That was in the days of the giants when clinicians were tied to such clunky programs as meaningful use and PQRS. In this antiquated milieu, Jason cut his teeth on basic health care architecture.

In those prehistoric years, there still remained a bias toward …

Physician voices

Connecting the lines between father and child

Jordan Grumet, MD

December 24, 2016Dec 24, 2016

I both look forward to and despise Sunday mornings. I awake just before the sun and am on the road by 5:15 a.m. Although I dread being upright so early on the weekend, I rejoice because it is the only trip to work, all week, at a leisurely pace. I see the new admits at the nursing home, run by the hospital if necessary, and return just as my family …

Physician voices

Every doctor has a powerful story to tell

Jordan Grumet, MD

October 28, 2016Oct 28, 2016

Behind every doctor is a child who once watched helplessly. Maybe it was her father or grandfather who suffered under the weight of a disease that was deemed all but incurable. Perhaps her own skin was battered and bruised by the repeated trauma of an unrelenting tourniquet. She swore that when (if) she got older she would protect the innocent from such things. Her vow was the light that guided …

Physician voices

When practicing medicine is like running

Jordan Grumet, MD

May 8, 2016May 8, 20162

Sometimes before I go on a run, I take the laces of my jogging shoes and tie them together in a knot. I wear the pair around my neck with each shoe falling to opposite sides. The heels clunk against my chest as I make my last minute rounds. It’s as if running is my job and the shoes are the instrument I use to perform that job. Eventually, I …

Conditions and diseases

We are born with our arms wide open. We die in much the same way.

Jordan Grumet, MD

April 11, 2016Apr 11, 2016

We are born with arms wide open, and we die in much the same way. It is that which we carry, in the time between, that defines us. The newborn, caught in the primordial stew of beginnings, is unable to…

We are born with arms wide open, and we die in much the same way. It is that which we carry, in the time between, that defines us.

The newborn, caught in the primordial stew of beginnings, is unable to recognize the difference between self and other. She grasps and roots at inanimate objects with the same voracity she reaches for her mother. It is a time of differentiation, a time …

Physician voices

Shared decision making is still the exception and not the rule

Jordan Grumet, MD

March 25, 2016Mar 25, 20169

Joe had one of the best geriatricians in the city. So when he got a call from the pharmacist saying his new prescription was ready, he assumed that it had to do with his recent annual visit and blood draw. His suspicions were confirmed, a few minutes later, when he got through to the nurse at the office.

Joe was politely informed that he had high cholesterol and was being put …

Physician voices

A potential real-life consequence of alarm fatigue

Jordan Grumet, MD

February 10, 2016Feb 10, 20162

I felt like the stack of charts rose past my head and all the way to the ceiling. I pulled out my pen, opened the first, and started charting. I took a moment before each note to collect my thoughts. The patients were complex, the problems sometimes insurmountable. The nursing station at the facility was buzzing with activity around me. Phones were ringing, alarms were crying for attention.

On the desk …

Physician voices

He felt that doctors were no longer helping people. Here’s why.

Jordan Grumet, MD

January 17, 2016Jan 17, 20166

It was never his intention that the name would stick. A decade ago, when he first began working in the restaurant, some of his fellow employees knew that he was formerly a practicing physician and started to call him “Doc.” Although many of his coworkers had since moved on, taking the knowledge of his previous profession with them, his moniker persisted.

Doc liked the simplicity and tedium of his bartending job. …

Physician voices

What physicians experience today is feigned intimacy

Jordan Grumet, MD

January 10, 2016Jan 10, 201622

Walter was far older than his chronological age. A mere thirteen years, he kept company with a much older crew. Doctors, nurses, and CNAs were his constant companions. The other kids on his floor were either too sick to interact, or came and left within a matter of days. But not Walter. His heart was too weak to allow his departure, but too strong to be first in line for …

Physician voices

7 surprising things patients should know about their physicians

Jordan Grumet, MD

December 23, 2015Dec 23, 2015100

The daughter of the patient walked out of the room livid. She was convinced that the nurse had no business taking care of patients. She seethed as she recounted all the supposed injuries and mistakes that had occurred. I took…

The daughter didn’t know that I had watched this same nurse successfully perform CPR on a man the …

Physician voices

Broken by a thousand, tiny, thoughtless insults

Jordan Grumet, MD

November 26, 2015Nov 26, 201510

It hit me today while on hold with an insurance company to get a preauthorization. The call took thirty minutes. The medication was denied. And I knew that I was going to get an earful from the patient when I delivered the bad news. As I dialed the phone number, a disturbing, and yet all to familiar, feeling overtook me.

Helplessness, powerlessness, impotence.

I struggle with these feelings daily. In the beginning …

Physician voices

For the most part, doctors get it right. Remember that.

Jordan Grumet, MD

November 22, 2015Nov 22, 2015

I have two refrigerators. The full size, expensive version, sits in the usual location in the kitchen. The small black one rests idly in the basement. Excluding this morning, of course, when I dragged it up the steps and begrudgingly…

I have two refrigerators.

The full size, expensive version, sits in the usual location in the kitchen. The small black one rests idly in the basement. Excluding this morning, of course, when I dragged it up the steps and begrudgingly coaxed it back into action. Let me explain.

Six months ago my old refrigerator started acting up. Somewhere around year five, it’s motors groaned, its coolers moaned, and all the sudden the …

Physician voices

Playing a little game in the nursing home

Jordan Grumet, MD

November 4, 2015Nov 4, 2015

It was a little game we played. My shoes squeaked quietly down the hallway of the nursing home as I approached her room. I knocked gently trying to avoid any particular rhythm or dissonance. Go away! Her voice was at…

It was a little game we played.

My shoes squeaked quietly down the hallway of the nursing home as I approached her room. I knocked gently trying to avoid any particular rhythm or dissonance.

Go away!

Her voice was at once stern, and then followed by peels of laughter. She only saved such greetings for me. And I tried to trip her up. I varied my visits by time and pattern. Sometimes I …