Emergency medicine

2,327 articles · Since 2004

Articles, page 41

How to game medical coding isn’t why I became a doctor

August 9, 2017Aug 9, 20173

A patient of mine recently came to see me in a follow-up appointment after an emergency department visit. He had been working out at the gym, on a hot day, after he had skipped breakfast, and after his usual routine he felt extremely lightheaded. Everyone told him he looked “white as a sheet”, and a physician who was at the gym told him he must go to the emergency department.

In …

Physician voices

The sad direction of hospital care

Steven Reznick, MD

August 8, 2017Aug 8, 201713

My 74-year old obese, poorly controlled diabetic patient with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, coronary artery disease, asthma, obstructive sleep apnea has been difficult to motivate to improve his lifestyle and his health. He is bright, sweet and caring but…

At each office visit, we review his medications, review his dietary habits and go through the check list of check-ups for diabetic complications including regular ophthalmology exams …

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The sad direction of hospital care

Health policy

Health reform is stalled. Here’s how to do it right.

Niran S. Al-Agba, MD

August 5, 2017Aug 5, 201720

I told you so. I also told the POTUS in my open letter, but he did not read it. Who could honestly believe the nation would support dumping coverage for 22 million people? As David Leonhard wrote recently op-ed in…

I told you so. I also told the POTUS in my open letter, but he did not read it.

Who could honestly believe the nation would support dumping coverage for 22 million people? As David Leonhard wrote recently op-ed in the New York Times: “They [Republicans and President Trump] had only one big weakness, in fact: They weren’t dealing in reality.” When faced with reality, it is interesting what a few good …

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Medical education

How a blanket changed the way I thought about medicine

Anika Morgado

August 4, 2017Aug 4, 2017

My sister calls my name three times before I hear her. I am so distracted by the palm trees and the ocean view that I don’t feel her put the car in park. I look up at the “Physician Parking…

My sister calls my name three times before I hear her. I am so distracted by the palm trees and the ocean view that I don’t feel her put the car in park. I look up at the “Physician Parking Only” sign straight ahead.

“Hurry up and get out. We’re running late, and I don’t want to have to stay after my shift ends,” she says.

“Don’t you always stay like two …

Physician voices

Being a camp doctor is the most rewarding physician job I’ve ever had

Dara Kass, MD

August 3, 2017Aug 3, 20173

Even after all this time, the phone calls aren't always easy to make. “Hi, Mrs. Smith, this is Dr. Kass at camp, don’t worry, everything is OK.” I usually get that out in one breath, then immediately transition to concrete…

Even after all this time, the phone calls aren’t always easy to make.

“Hi, Mrs. Smith, this is Dr. Kass at camp, don’t worry, everything is OK.” I usually get that out in one breath, then immediately transition to concrete details. “It’s a finger. It might be broken.” It doesn’t matter if I’m calling about a cough, a fever or a bite from the camp pet pig — I know that …

Physician voices

Scribes for physician burnout: How scribes help reconnect doctors with their patients

Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH

August 3, 2017Aug 3, 201711

Recently, I had an opportunity to drop in on two of the foremost researchers in physician burnout, Sara Poplau and Mark Linzer of Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. We chatted about various aspects of the current burnout crisis and exciting new initiatives on the horizon. Then we spent some time contemplating a frustrating truth: leaders in health care often fail to acknowledge a reality that leaders in other industries …

Physician voices

Parents: Interact with your kids!

Edwin Leap, MD

July 31, 2017Jul 31, 2017

After years and years of practicing emergency medicine, I’ve seen and treated thousands of children for everything from beads in the nose to leukemia, ruptured spleens to sprained ankles. A father of four myself, I take great delight in interacting…

After years and years of practicing emergency medicine, I’ve seen and treated thousands of children for everything from beads in the nose to leukemia, ruptured spleens to sprained ankles.

A father of four myself, I take great delight in interacting with the kids that come through my workplace. I consider it a personal challenge to make them smile whenever possible and to put them at ease.

I’ve learned a few things over …

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Parents: Interact with your kids!

Physician voices

Hope is the ultimate cure

Dr. Saqib Noor

July 25, 2017Jul 25, 2017

In February 2010, I completed my final ward round and said goodbye to my patients in Haiti just six weeks after a tragic earthquake. This earthquake was a natural disaster so devastating that within a momentary blink, a minute's tremor…

Amidst the wreckage, hundreds of thousands more were left severely injured, shocked, …

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Hope is the ultimate cure

Physician voices

Emergency physicians have to build emotional walls. Sometimes they break.

Jeffrey McWilliams, MD

July 24, 2017Jul 24, 2017

We emergency physicians are often thrust into the frontline battles raging in society. The pain, blood, and emotions are so real, so thick and ever present, creating an undertone that is difficult to deny. We walk the corridors of our departments actively involved in life or death, where the span of mere millimeters might as well be miles as we explore wounds, clinical scenarios and presentations. How do we do …

Physician voices

He was fine when I discharged him, now he might die

Raj Waghmare, MD

July 22, 2017Jul 22, 2017

It’s 1 a.m., and I’m afraid this guy is going to die. He’s gasping for air, hunched over a table as I poke his chubby back and try to find a rib. Oxygen is flowing through nasal prongs at six liters per minute, and it’s barely making a difference as his oxygen saturation hovers around eighty-five percent (it should be in the high-nineties.) He’s sick, but what’s more worrisome is …

Physician voices

Working in the ED has made me a better parent

Jared Pelo, MD

July 16, 2017Jul 16, 2017

How applicable are the lessons we learn in the hospital to other areas of our personal and professional lives? Over the past eight years in the emergency department, I have learned most about people. These lessons have been crucial to…

These are my top 5 insights:

1. Clear communication is key and overly clear communication is even better. It …

Conditions and diseases

Drowning in a sea of misinformation: Dry drowning and secondary drowning

Andrew Schmidt, DO, MPH & Justin Sempsrott, MD & Seth Collings Hawkins, MD

July 6, 2017Jul 6, 2017

Recently, a young child died following days of vomiting. He had been in shallow water in a Texas dike about a week before his death. The story was picked up as an alleged case of a rare condition called dry drowning or secondary drowning. The media accounts went viral, spreading significant fear in parenting communities and among those learning about these alleged conditions from the news …

Physician voices

These physicians are crying. Here’s why.

Christopher Bennett, MD

July 4, 2017Jul 4, 2017

I cried this morning. It wasn’t because of the patient who coded with a wide-complex tachycardia and died in front of me, and it wasn’t because of the patient who tried to spit on me for not giving her a prescription for narcotics. Nor was it my intoxicated 2 a.m. bar fight patient yelling at my other patients, including one whom I’d recently diagnosed with metastatic cancer. It was because …

Physician voices

A letter from a physician to his father

Fevr Doc, MD

June 18, 2017Jun 18, 2017

I want to sincerely thank you from the depths of my heart. I don’t show it, and I certainly don’t say it, but you have always been my role model. You positively shape who I am as a man, and…

I want to sincerely thank you from the depths of my heart. I don’t show it, and I certainly don’t say it, but you have always been my role model. You positively shape who I am as a man, and your staunch encouragement is invaluable to me.

In a world of words, texts and tweets, you have let your actions speak. You have remained apolitical and areligious, choosing to focus your …

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A letter from a physician to his father

Physician voices

There’s something wrong with emergency care. Here’s what it is.

Jeffrey McWilliams, MD

June 11, 2017Jun 11, 20174

I am an emergency physician, forever grateful of the responsibilities entrusted by my patients. This is a relationship I hold dear. As such, I’m an active participant in the war of life and death for our patients. I’m in the trenches with the best nurses, techs and EMS personnel holding the line as the battle continues. We have our victories and share our defeats, all in the name of what …

Health policy

Think you can do anything you set your mind to? Think again.

Thomas D. Guastavino, MD

June 8, 2017Jun 8, 20178

During my salad days, I — like a lot of physicians — thought I could take on the world. Despite working in a smaller, community hospital, our ER saw a lot of the same type of orthopedic trauma I saw during residency. And my young partners and I took virtually every case that came in except spinal trauma. We did this whether we were on unassigned ER call or not …

Physician voices

This is what it’s like to be a military physician

Demis N. Lipe, MD

June 7, 2017Jun 7, 20174

After another long shift of patients with colds, bug bites, ankle sprains and sore throats I eagerly looked through the wine selection at the local grocery store. It was my wedding anniversary and nearing 9 p.m. at the beginning of a holiday weekend. While at the checkout line, an elderly woman in front of me thanked me for my service. At that moment, I realized that I was wearing my …

Physician voices

5 myths about emergency physician groups

Roneet Lev, MD

June 6, 2017Jun 6, 2017

Independent physician groups and solo physicians have been the historic bedrock of medical practice. While it is true that there is intense pressure on the single-physician group, and this market is shrinking, independent physicians are here to stay. Some single practice physician groups may merge with larger groups, some physicians will break off from the large contract groups, but there is no plan on them becoming extinct.

Independent physician groups have …

Conditions and diseases

The abscess that surprised this emergency physician

Raj Waghmare, MD

June 1, 2017Jun 1, 2017

I carried it around with me the entire shift. I showed it to my E.R. colleagues, the internists, and even a couple of surgeons. I’d tell them the story. “Never,” one of them said. “Not in twenty-eight years. Never seen…

One of them held the small urine jar up to a light and began unscrewing the lid.

“Don’t!” I said.

“Why not?”

“It stinks. You wouldn’t believe how much it stinks. We …

Physician voices

This is what practicing medicine in rural America is really like

Edwin Leap, MD

May 27, 2017May 27, 20172

“So tell me why you think you you’re having a stroke?” The nice lady, mid 40s, sat on the ER exam table in work-clothes, an anxious look on her face. “Well, I was working the cattle up in the timber,…

“So tell me why you think you you’re having a stroke?”

The nice lady, mid 40s, sat on the ER exam table in work-clothes, an anxious look on her face. “Well, I was working the cattle up in the timber, and when I got back to my 4-wheeler my heart was racing, and I was short of breath. My arms were tingling, and so was my face. I’m concerned it might …

Emergency medicine

Articles, page 41

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