Rosalind Kaplan is an internal medicine physician who blogs at her self-titled site, Dr. Rosalind Kaplan. 

Breaking the glass ceiling in medicine: the struggles and strengths of female doctors

Physician
February 10, 2023

There’s some pretty good evidence out there that women physicians provide really good medical care—in some cases, better than their male counterparts. For instance, a 2017 study showed that hospitalized Medicare patients under the care of a female doctor had lower rates of 30-day mortality and readmission to the hospital than those cared for by a male doctor. A study in Canada in 2016 found that patients of female doctors …

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Breaking the glass ceiling in medicine: the struggles and strengths of female doctors

On the boundaries of medicine, medical education, and political passion

Physician
August 19, 2022

On July 25, 2022, dozens of medical students at the University of Michigan School of Medicine walked out of the school’s White Coat Ceremony when the keynote speaker, Dr. Kristin Collier, an assistant professor of medicine, approached the podium. Dr. Collier is pro-life and has expressed her anti-abortion views in tweets and interviews. She was chosen as keynote speaker by a vote by the university’s Gold Humanism Honor Society. A …

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On the boundaries of medicine, medical education, and political passion

Is being a victim a part of being a doctor?

Physician
June 29, 2022

On June 1, two doctors, a medical receptionist, and a patient were gunned down in the doctors’ outpatient office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. An investigation revealed that one of the doctors was the intended target — a patient, angry because his pain was not relieved after spinal surgery, decided that the doctor who performed the surgery deserved to die. The other victims were collateral damage.

This event is shocking. It’s frightening that …

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Is being a victim a part of being a doctor?

What do you want from health care after COVID?

Physician
May 11, 2020

In the last six weeks or so, the practice of medicine has been turned topsy-turvy by the COVID pandemic.  Those weeks seem like an eternity. We have been so consumed with testing and treatment coronavirus, flattening the curve, and figuring out how to wear a mask without having our glasses fog up, that it’s hard to remember health care before COVID.

But let’s try, just for a minute. Let’s try to …

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What do you want from health care after COVID?

Urgent care is emblematic of problems in our health system

Policy
February 23, 2020

 Working in urgent care, I’ve started supervising some of the other providers at sites other than my own — 19 sites in all in Pennsylvania and Delaware — so I hear about a lot of patient situations.

The urgent care site where I work is in an affluent area.  Most of our patients are employed or retired and have health insurance, though I have certainly encountered a number of patients …

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Urgent care is emblematic of problems in our health system

A physician’s New Year’s resolutions

Physician
January 14, 2019

2019 is here.

I started my year by doing an urgent care shift on New Year’s day.  It was not quite as busy as I expected; most of the shifts I’ve done around the holidays were high-volume, with lots of flu, other respiratory infections, and lacerations sustained while cooking holiday meals.  New Year’s day was a little slower on the illnesses, but the acuity of the injuries was high.  That’s what …

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A physician’s New Year’s resolutions

Too many moving parts: Physicians can’t own it all anymore

Physician
January 1, 2019

A few days ago, I made a call to my neurologist’s office. The fourth call about the same issue. I needed my migraine medication and wasn’t able to get it. I was almost ready to give up and give in to having migraines on a daily basis. None of the usual preventative medications have worked for me, so I am on one of the new, hi-tech injectable medications for migraine …

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Too many moving parts: Physicians can’t own it all anymore

Urgent care isn’t the answer to our broken system

Physician
November 8, 2018

I’ve only worked four shifts of urgent care so far, but four 12-hour shifts means I’ve seen a lot: a lot of patients, a lot of different ailments, a lot of different reasons that people come to urgent care centers.

I have to admit that this has been a breath of fresh air for me; compared to primary care, I work less frequently, I feel like the monetary compensation is fairer, …

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Urgent care isn’t the answer to our broken system

These are the stories of how physicians are bullied

Physician
September 3, 2018

Nobody punched me in the face.  Maybe I would have preferred being punched in the face, though.  And yes,  I was bullied.  I’m not going to talk about my own experience in this post however, because I already have post-traumatic stress disorder from the experience.  I’m not ready to revisit it in detail yet.

I don’t need to talk about myself to tell you about bullying in the medical arena.  I …

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These are the stories of how physicians are bullied

I want to quit medicine, and it has nothing to do with patients

Physician
May 5, 2017

I think a lot about quitting medicine lately. A lot.

Then I have a morning like yesterday morning:

I see a patient I’ve known for more than twenty years, caring for him through an adrenal tumor, a major gastrointestinal surgery and now renal failure, for which he needs a kidney transplant. As we review his last set of labs (stable, thank goodness), he is sanguine, hopeful. He may have found a donor, …

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I want to quit medicine, and it has nothing to do with patients