A physician’s mistakes as a rookie MD

Physician
July 19, 2018

July is upon us again: that New Year celebrated only by those in the medical field. A time when medical students begin as doctors, interns become residents, residents become fellows and, basically, everyone in every position is one year less experienced at it than the person who held that position the day before.

This July marks the end of my first year of pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship. Finally, after college, grad school, …

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A physician’s mistakes as a rookie MD

Always check the back seat before you leave the car

Physician
July 14, 2016

The patient arrived in the pediatric intensive care unit one summer early in my medical training. The weather was still warm, although the unforgiving heat from earlier in the season had mercifully passed. The whole thing had been an accident: The child, a toddler, had been left in the car outside her father’s office, discovered several hours later when the father returned to retrieve a document from the back seat. …

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Always check the back seat before you leave the car

Time macho: Why I’m part of the problem

Education
March 8, 2016

It was a concept intimately familiar to me long before anyone gave it a name. From my earliest days in college, I felt surrounded by people who packed their days with meetings, activities, sports practices or competitions; classes, study groups, and research; for whom every moment had been spoken for and each day didn’t so much end as spill over into the next. The standard was clear: to do any …

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Time macho: Why I’m part of the problem

Can we get more from our medical meetings?

Education
August 13, 2014

Recently I attended a national academic conference, and while I’ll admit that, having brought my husband and son along for the trip, the balance of time spent was skewed more toward pool and beach activities than academic sessions, I did indeed attend several and overall they were of good quality. One left me somewhat disappointed, though, because although it addressed what I would consider an important topic within my field, …

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Can we get more from our medical meetings?

The doctor will see you now, or will she?

Physician
March 16, 2014

My friend breathed a sigh of relief as she finished her last clinic visit for the day and headed down the hall to the physician workroom.  It was only 5pm.  She still had notes to write and labs to check, and as a senior resident she needed to make it back to the hospital wards to check on her team’s interns, to get updates on the afternoon’s events and help …

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The doctor will see you now, or will she?