Michelle Au is an anesthesiologist and author of This Won’t Hurt A Bit (and other white lies): My Education in Medicine and Motherhood.

Why this doctor decided to run for political office

Policy
January 9, 2020

The practice of medicine is limited by what we can control. As students, we are taught to believe in the power of science, the importance of hard work, and the momentum of technological advancement as prime determinants in our patients’ outcomes. However, as we get further along in our careers, we come to realize that many of the factors that contribute to poor health are beyond our control at …

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Why this doctor decided to run for political office

The measles outbreak, media imagery, and the thoughtful focus of fear

Conditions
February 3, 2019

A rapidly escalating measles outbreak near Portland, OR has led local health officials to declare a public health emergency, with 44 confirmed cases, almost all in unimmunized children. Meanwhile, New York and New Jersey have been facing a similar crisis over the past few months, with over 200 confirmed cases of the measles tearing through the ultra-orthodox Jewish communities in the area, …

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The measles outbreak, media imagery, and the thoughtful focus of fear

Help me help you: I’m not a politician. I’m just a doctor.

Policy
March 24, 2017

At this point, much has been made of the health care bill the Republican administration has put forth to replace the ACA. We’ve heard the details of the bill, we’ve seen the numbers. We know that the U.S. Congressional Budget Office has forecast that 24 million more people will be uninsured by 2026 if House Representatives replace the ACA with the current bill proposed by the Trump administration. We know …

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Help me help you: I’m not a politician. I’m just a doctor.

For doctors online, common sense needs to be learned

Social media
September 21, 2012

Though I’ve personally been writing online for coming up on eleven years—basically the span of my entire medical career—I’ve never purported to be a pundit or expert when it comes to the topic of social media in medicine.  In some ways actually, I feel like Willy Loman, who built his little house in the middle of a field and later found himself surrounded by skyscrapers.  But …

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For doctors online, common sense needs to be learned

Why maintaining a distance is necessary for doctors

Physician
February 24, 2012

You would think that for doctors, who work with life and death issues every day, the issues of our own frailties or the tenuous line between health and sickness for our own families would be, if not accentuated, then at least more immediate than to those who, say, do investment banking for a living. But the strange thing is that despite our easy familiarity with human mortality, it is not …

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Why maintaining a distance is necessary for doctors

When people decide not to vaccinate their children, I take it personally

Physician
September 6, 2011

If the media and Internet are to be believed (and these days, really, what is the difference?), the act of parenting has become a full-scale cultural war.  How to raise your kids.  On what to raise your kids.  How your kids sleep, eat, play, and practice “Little White Donkey” on the piano–nowadays, these are all grist for the mill.

But if modern parenting feels like a war, its bloodiest battlefield surely …

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When people decide not to vaccinate their children, I take it personally

We want our doctors to be perfect, but they’re human too

Physician
June 16, 2011

Though there are few subjects as immediate to my experience as that described in Gardiner Harris’s article in The New York Times, “More Doctors Say No to Endless Workdays,”  perhaps the truest indication of my opinion on the matter may be the fact that, upon first glance at the headline, I didn’t feel much need to read the rest of the article.  More doctors say no …

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We want our doctors to be perfect, but they’re human too