When I was a third-year medical student in 2006, I was assigned to spend the day at a well-known women’s health clinic in Toronto. I walked into the procedure room and introduced myself to the attending. His first words to me were: “Are you married?” I replied that I wasn’t married, and he (while continuing the procedure) asked, “Well, do you at least have a serious boyfriend?” Then he asked …
As medical students, we are asked to learn in exquisite detail the ins and outs of rare diseases that we may never encounter in clinical practice. Yet the education we receive on caring for a population numbering in the millions is sorely lacking, and the health of those patients — the members of our communities identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or as another sexual or gender minority — is …
According to the NASEM report, half of women medical students experience sexual harassment before they start their careers as physicians. The numbers are even higher for people belonging to minority groups. This harassment is generally overlooked and tolerated, and as injurious as it can be, these women often have to suck it up, keep it moving, and accept it as “part of …
Ours is a chaotic and overburdened medical system. As a senior resident, there is every temptation to seek in our incoming classes more obedient interns and junior residents who would obey my orders as their senior without question. I challenge that we must do the harder thing.
The explosive growth in the health care industry has seen a shift in priorities to traumatic, urgent and emergent care. And we see profits …
Thirteen years ago, as a student in New York City, I marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to implore my colleagues to fight for universal health care. That day, I enunciated what has become my personal mission by saying, “We need universal coverage that is portable. We need universal coverage that is comprehensive. We need universal coverage that ensures equal access to care. Most importantly, we need you — to lead …
Older surgeons are coming under increasing scrutiny as their competence and ability to practice medicine are called into question especially since many continue to work in their 60s and 70s. The New York Times addressed this in a recent article entitled, “When is the surgeon too old to operate?”
They described an 80-year-old chief of vascular surgery at a New Jersey hospital who was the first doctor evaluated by a …
Medicine need not be confined to the role of cultural bellwether, a sheep with a bell on its neck that reveals where the whole flock is headed. Along with other professions such as law, clergy, and education, medicine can and should play the leadership role of a shepherd, helping our society to develop more thoughtful, balanced and generous approaches to the challenges that face us. After all, the word Read more…
Over the past year, multiple mega-mergers were announced in health care. The four largest ones being:
1. On March 18, 2018, Cigna announced that it was acquiring Express Scripts for $68 billion in cash and stocks. The deal was closed on December 20, 2018.
2. On December 3, 2017, CVS announced that they were acquiring Aetna for $69 billion in cash and stocks. The deal was officially closed on November 28. …
I write for several publications, and I’m always pitching to new venues. Recently I pitched an idea to an editor. I wanted to write about gun research from the perspective of a rural physician. In particular, I wanted to ask what might physicians say if researchers found answers that were uncomfortable. What if they found that intact families, strong fathers, religious engagement or familiarity with guns were factors that reduce …
Children are relatively healthy overall. Although 25% of the American population is under the age of 19, only 2% of annual deaths occur in this age group. There was a time when the contributions of diseases to pediatric death rates were much higher. Declines in deaths from infectious disease or cancer, the result of early diagnosis, vaccinations, antibiotics, and medical and surgical treatment, have given way to increases in deaths from …
Anybody who has even a passing interest in health and wellness knows the sobering fact that a large number of medical problems that plague society today are the result of unhealthy living habits. Conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, which are reaching epidemic proportions, are directly linked to poor eating and inactivity. Official statistics show that around 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. We live …
Imagine you’re a CEO in charge of a health care organization with thousands of physicians and 19 hospitals.
Overall, the quality of care delivered is good. Prices and costs are low. But there is a problem: Patients rate your service below average. Making matters worse, a swarm of low-priced competitors have moved in, challenging your market share. You’re going to need to improve patient satisfaction to survive. What do you do?
At midnight on February 15th, if Republicans and Democrats don’t come to an agreement about border security funding, the American people will be facing the possibility of a third government shutdown since President Trump took office. The most recent government shutdown — the longest in history at 35 days — left nearly 800,000 Americans furloughed or working without pay. Federal benefits that millions of Americans depend on, such as …
I barely remember walking out of the hospital that day. After a nearly 30-hour residency shift, I was in a bit of a daze. I trudged across the main parking lot, staring absently at the coffee-colored snow beneath my boots. I have no memory of reaching the crosswalk to the main road or even stepping on to it. What I do recall is the loud, startling screech of brakes.
Florence Nightingale was among the first nurses who started wearing a nurse’s cap.
The cap was derived by nuns and represented those caring for the sick. Hair was neatly tightened into a bun and covered by the cap.
Back then becoming a nurse was typically seen as a female profession, but men were allowed to become nurses too. In 1930, only one percent of RNs nationwide were male.
In a New York Post article dated January 23, 2019, the author states how Americans without health care insurance hit 13.7 percent. This 2.8 percent increase means an additional seven-million Americans lack health coverage as noted by the Gallup survey period.
This is not far behind the 18 percent recorded just before the Obamacare mandate in 2014.
Everyone is blamed in this article except the culprits. Do you think for one moment …
A male interventional radiologist who is active in the #HeForShe campaign recently told me that he is being pressured to stop advocating for women. My first instinct was the biggest sigh and eyeroll of my life followed by thoughts of locker room peer pressure and boys’ club type discussions.
But the criticism did not just come from men; many women are asking him to stop. That they don’t need a knight …
To do the math right, you have to get your numerator and denominator correct, or else things just don’t work.
Recently, in the midst of a large patient safety and quality improvement project trying to bridge gaps in breast cancer screening among our patients, we discovered that one of the large databases of patients who were attributed to us contained innumerable …
Instead of driving on the highway, let’s imagine you drove upwards from wherever you are. You’ll reach space in about an hour.
On your way up, you’ll begin to see everything differently. Cities, roads, and trees slowly blur out to make way for a new kind of reality. Converging. Diverging. Both at the same time.
What appears dissimilar on the ground (trees and shrubs) will appear similar (green). What unites on the …
