I am hanging up my stethoscope and exiting the ambulance bay doors for the last time. I chose emergency medicine to care for critically ill and injured patients, and I’m leaving because this has become near impossible.
I believe it imperative to share some of the reasons that I, and many like me, are leaving a field we once loved, as their ramifications will sooner or later impact you and those …
It’s 4 a.m. when a 17-year-old awakens at home with severe left shoulder pain that his worried parents call 911. By the time he reaches the emergency room (ER), he has pain all the way to his wrist.
“Any recent injuries?” asks the doctor.
“Yeah, about three days ago, I was lifting about 200 pounds at the gym and noticed that my shoulder was really sore.”
When questioned further, he admits that he’d …
As a former emergency medicine doctor with ABEM certification, I anticipate questions about why I sought medical care. At this point, my problems are complex, and I need someone with a clear head to weigh in. At every encounter (and there have been nine or ten in three weeks), I have been both shocked and disappointed, as it seems patient well-being is barely a consideration in health care settings in …
The house is asleep, and I can’t turn off my brain. I just cried my way through an episode of SEAL Team, especially the part where two SEALs are opening up to a psychologist about feeling broken. One says he’s tired of pretending he’s OK that he has PTSD and needs help. Later, he breaks down, and his wife folds him in her arms and tells him she’s there to …
“I don’t want to be alive anymore.”
My friend Margot was despondent. Her lips quivered. Her eyes, normally the shape of almonds, folded themselves into little triangles when she cried. This kind and gentle woman of 62 years – my neighbor – was undeniably at her lowest point. I was sharing a couch with her during my junior year of college as her composure crumpled before me.
I first met Margot when …
I had wanted to take a long motorcycle trip for years, and I finally carved out two weeks to do so. My pal Doug and I packed our gear onto our Harleys and headed out without an itinerary. We would select the day’s route each morning. Initially, we enjoyed spectacular scenery and good times.
After a few days, however, we encountered pouring rain while winding through remote mountains. There was no …
Dvořák Symphony No. 9 in E minor (“From the New World”) – Movement II ‘Largo’: a soundscape like floating beside the clouds in a perfect blue sky. The brass chords flood your ears. The underlying orchestra adds harmonic depth and richness. The English horn solo tugs at heartstrings, sighing at the end of each phrase.
After years spent in numerous youth symphonic orchestras, this performance stands out to me among an …
It is one of the last days of September. The sun, pale and tired, is slowly surrendering the humdrum of earth to the grey, soulless air. My father and I walk to our very final medical appointment, hopeless, exhausted, and befuddled. My father’s labored breathing is the only sound that fills the silence on our trip. As we drift to the entrance, …
“One initiative that more administrators should support is global medical outreach. The ability to practice pure medicine, like the neighborhood doctor from long ago, renews a love for the vocation that physicians sought when they first entered medical school. Humanitarian outreach will help reinvigorate physician workforces immediately, allowing physicians to have …
I hope this finds you well. Today, I took some time shopping for a new outfit to wear to the upcoming festivities marking the end of your emergency medicine residency. We have celebrated many educational milestones over the years, haven’t we?
It seems like only yesterday that you started the third year of medical school. I remember the anticipation and pressure associated with moving out of the sim[ulation] lab and beginning …
“It feels different down here,” she said. I had just approached a young woman in our ED waiting room to apologize for the seven-hour wait to be seen. She looked at me with bloodshot, dark brown eyes and continued, “It feels like … the lower decks … Do you know what I mean?” I placed my hand on her shoulder, acknowledging her analogy with a shudder of complete understanding.
She was …
As an off-cycle medical student with an extended break between the completion of my M4 rotations and the conferment of my MD, I took a job as a medical scribe to keep myself active in the clinical setting (and, it must be said, provide myself with much-needed income).
I was atypical among most medical scribes, who are generally college students/graduates looking to obtain experience before applying to postgraduate medical programs, so …
In the wake of a harrowing year, I’m left wondering, is a career in emergency medicine worth it? Like so many of my colleagues, I suffered personal tragedies during the pandemic that exacerbated the incredible stress at work.
My brother died in March of 2021, three weeks after receiving a diagnosis of metastatic colon cancer, and tragically, just six months later, my mother also died unexpectedly.
I have no doubt that emergency …
Have you ever really appreciated the silence? The true silence that transports you to the root of it all. Our lives are a perpetual hamster wheel, chasing aspirations with underlying motivations that I often don’t completely understand. Good intentions and acts of kindness, seemingly altruistic, have hidden motivations of affirmation or appreciation. Why do you do what you do? It seems so obvious on the surface, but like an onion …
A recent conversation with a colleague took an unfortunate turn when he asked me to teach him how to say my name. I happily obliged. “It’s O-HA-BUN-WA” I said phonetically with a smile on my face. Like many with ethnically distinct names, I get so happy when people attempt to say my name correctly. His response, however, was quite shocking.
“I will never be able to pronounce that,” he said emphatically. …
U.S. health care is going to hell in a handbasket, but only as patients can we alter this. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), hospital administrators and we patients are all guilty of worshiping at the altar of “patient satisfaction.”
It’s not that patient satisfaction is necessarily a bad thing. As a patient myself, I certainly seek out convenience and satisfaction. A UC Davis study in 2012, …
Tapping into the mindset of one of the most villainous cinematic computers, the HAL 9000 of 2001 A Space Odyssey, may provide introspection to save us from the same paranoid meltdown that led HAL (spoiler alert) to embark on a murderous rampage. Homicidal activity should not be a lurking risk in any of us, but burnout is.
Briefly, in case you are unfamiliar with Stanly Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke’s sci-fi …
An excerpt from Changing How We Think About Difficult Patients: A Guide for Physicians and Healthcare Professionals.
After I finished my residency in EM and started working as an attending physician, I realized I had a problem. I believe a lot of you have the same problem. Some of our patients are so angry, oppositional, and non-compliant that we get angry …
Before I worked as a medical scribe, I didn’t realize how many mildly ill people visited the emergency department (ED). In my first few weeks, though, I learned that patients with minor complaints, such as sprains, cavities, rashes, and common cold symptoms, actually present to the ED quite often – often enough that the hospital where I worked had to dedicate an entire 12-bed wing to them. In most EDs, …
My patient was trying to kill himself by refusing to treat a bladder infection. I looked down at him. His aura was black, indicating the premeditated murder of a human. Guess they hadn’t caught him for that one. His gang tats were Latin American, and his eyes were black. He didn’t like me much.
I wasn’t phased. He couldn’t do much about it, paralyzed from the neck down.
“It’s not going to …
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