Medical students are brilliantly frugal. And it’s no surprise — according to the AAMC, the average U.S. medical student incurs $170,000 of debt from medical education. We are a resourceful, smart, and cost-conscious group — so why is the medical school curriculum practically silent on the cost of medicine?
During medical school, we are taught to be excellent diagnosticians. The third and fourth years of training provide 60 to 80 hours a week of …
As of October 2013, the average medical student graduated with $169,901 of debt with nearly 80 percent of all graduates owing at least $100,000. Although these numbers are daunting, medical school educational debt is part and parcel of our profession. Truth be told, at the end of our training (which can range from three to ten years post-medical school), almost all of us will make at least $150,000 and likely be …
The observation status problem has continued to grow both larger and worse.
My hospitalist colleagues and I are caring for patients in hospital beds in the exact same way as other patients in the hospital, but we are told that we must give them the designation called observation status. CMS recognizes observation status as outpatient care, like seeing a patient in a walk-in clinic.
The present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own.
– Charles Caleb Colton
The cherubic young man smiles from the black-and-white class photo. His open, relaxed appearance captures my attention. He sits on a wooden bench at the far right end of the front row, his sharp white shirt and patterned tie cinched tightly beneath his three-piece wool suit with the stylishly wide lapels. He looks directly at the camera …
Although I never disclosed this in my medical school interviews for fear of being just another cliche (“Hollywood sparks interest in medicine story”), I decided to become a doctor in 1997 at the age of 11 when I first saw the movie, Outbreak. For years and years, this was my favorite movie. The scene where they showed the electron micrograph image of the Ebola virus had me captivated. I was staring at …
After listening to a lecture, third-year students at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine were surveyed about distractions by electronic devices and given a 12-question quiz. Although 65% of the students admitted to having been distracted by emails, Facebook, and/or texting during the lecture, distracted students had an average score of 9.85 correct compared to 10.444 students who said they weren’t distracted. The difference was not significant, p = 0.652.
I recently attended my 10-year medical school reunion class party, and I have to admit, I had a great time. From the beginning, my class was special. We had 104 amazing people who were truly inspired to make a difference.
However, regardless of how talented and hard working you are, medical school is one of the most challenging things you will ever …
This New York Times article stimulated thoughts about teaching internal medicine: “Better Ways to Learn“:
In the new book, “How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens” (Random House), Benedict Carey, a science reporter for The New York Times, challenges the notion that a high test score equals true learning. He argues that although a good grade may be achieved in the short …
Traditional premedical students enter a four-year university directly after high school and begin taking courses for their major while also working on their required pre-med core sciences in order to finish their studies in a timely fashion. Most of these students finish their sciences by their sophomore year in hopes of taking the Medical …
A friend of mine, a diabetic who has been pretty passive about his medical care, suddenly learned the importance of patient engagement a few weeks ago when a matter affecting his pocketbook grabbed his attention. A bill arrived from Express Scripts, the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) for Emblem Health, a Medigap plan offered to former New York City employees.
For years my friend had been taking the drug gemfibrozil that diabetics …
Recently, I have been reflecting more about my musical journey as an organist over the past 15 years. It has been great to learn how to continue my medical training to the best of my ability while still trying to keep my musical interests alive. Despite the busyness of medical training, I have thankfully had opportunities to perform publicly, as well as meet other musicians. I began …
“Why would an artist want to go to medical school?”
It was a good question, and one of my favorite questions asked of me during my medical school interviews. I am what one might define as an artist, and yes, I really wanted to go to medical school. I was a photographer, musician, composer, and actor. I loved the arts and they …
During most of my career as a psychiatrist, I haven’t often dealt directly with death. For the past five years, though, I have had the privilege of spending two days a week treating service men and women returning from deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Listening to their stories and talking with them about their war experiences, I’ve spent much more time thinking about death and dying.
A thick green glob landed on my scrub top at the same time that the first drop of sweat rolled down the small of my back. I tried not to grimace and discretely walked over to the hand sanitizer dispenser. But like every other hand sanitizer I had tried, this one was empty. Yesterday I had also discovered that the only bathroom in the hospital had no toilet paper. It …
My journey in medicine began as a young child: I was the typical kid who knew I wanted to a be a doctor since I was a child and was thrilled when I was accepted into an 8-year college program which culminated in a medical degree. However, by the end of my undergraduate program, medicine was changing: doctors were spending less …
A medical student recently asked my advice on her decision to pursue a career in dermatology. It was about 25 years ago when my own parents encouraged me to pursue this specialty. What was their deal? Perhaps, they anticipated future developments in the field and were hoping for free Botox treatments? As readers know, I rejected the rarefied world of pustules and itchy skin rashes for the glamor of hemorrhoids, …
My student’s voice trembled as she answered my question. “How do you think you’ve done so far?” I’d asked her. We’d been together on the general medicine inpatient ward for two weeks — the midpoint of the rotation — and as was my usual custom I was giving her feedback on her performance by first asking her to rate her performance …
Medical students are repeatedly taught the importance of the physician-patient relationship. We are told that to be a good doctor we must strive to exhibit compassion, empathy, respect, professionalism and confidence all while applying our medical knowledge to figure out a diagnosis and treatment plan. If you add in the pressure of doing this within a 15-minute visit, all while answering questions faster than an Internet search, it can get …
Scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer once said, “There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”
Like physics, medicine has its share of problems, namely cost control.
Like children, we must open our perception to the problem of cost control to consider other possibilities that better account for the issue than the theories …
