I recently went hiking in a beautiful national park outside of Columbia, SC. This park was in a swampy area and contained all sorts of wildlife (called “critters” down here) and plant life (called “trees and those other things” down here). When I was young, my dad would take us kids on hikes through the Adirondack Park in New York, and so being on hikes in nature hits my soul …
We are all spiders making our webs
As physicians, we are conditioned to put ourselves last. This long-standing tendency likely began way before we hit medical school. But certainly, our training reinforces it. Think about it: the personality type that goes into medicine is typically a caretaker. And while medical school reinforces this personality pitfall, It doesn’t end there. Residency brings a whole other dimension of self-neglect. We think, “If I can just get out of residency …
4 ways doctors put themselves last
I bleed blue and gold. No, I am not talking about Michigan, West Virginia or Notre Dame. I am definitely not talking about UCLA Bruins (by the way, UCLA fans, a bruin is a brown bear). That’s right — I am a die-hard Cal Bears fan.
Thanks to Cal football, and particularly to legendary Marshawn Lynch, my college days were filled with excitement. (I am counting on you, Coach Wilcox.) Marshawn, …
How do you fight racism in medicine?
Our powerful subconscious minds are processing information that we don’t even realize we are taking in, so to achieve gender equity we must actively uncover things that are unintentionally promoting stereotypes.
For example, we know that if we want to promote a gender equitable environment that putting portraits of men on the walls of the classrooms would not be ideal. Even if there were one or two women in the mix, …
Do the portraits hanging in medical schools hurt women and minorities?
Medicine is a calling. And almost all of us went into this profession for altruistic reasons. Unfortunately, it’s no secret that the health care landscape has changed dramatically over the last couple of decades, and practicing medicine is undoubtedly getting more difficult for most doctors.
Fortunately, I’ve found myself in a better place than most. But after hearing feedback from physicians at various stages of their career, there are a number …
3 signs that you’re ready to leave your job
“There was porn in the call room the first night I slept there.”
The call room is the room where doctors sleep — if they have minutes to catch some sleep — when they are on call. When you’re the first female doctor to ever be on the service, apparently you might find porn in that room.
“I told the partners they could keep the porn if they’d let me paint the …
3 things women doctors need to succeed
While driving home from a weekend trip, my children were watching The Lorax in the backseat, and I couldn’t help but think how acutely applicable its theme is to the current state of medicine in America. Just as seemingly small changes in the name of “progress” slowly altered the environment in The Lorax, a handful of mostly well-intended modifications have transformed the landscape of medicine into something unrecognizable and unsustainable.
We …
Here’s what Dr. Seuss can teach real doctors about burnout
A father and a son are in a car accident. The father dies instantly, and the son is taken to the nearest hospital. The doctor comes in and exclaims, “I can’t operate on this boy!”
“Why not?” the nurse asks.
“Because he is my son,” the doctor responds.
How is this possible?
***
I first saw this riddle in a Washington Post article in October 2016. I was four years out of residency, and for the …
No female physician should have to feel that her gender is a factor limiting her success
Recently, I was asked an intriguing question by an interviewer: “If you had a magic wand and could have one wish for improving the well-being of clinicians and addressing burnout, what would it be?”
My response? Respect. Respect for the humanity of everyone who touches the health care system — patients, family members, administrative staff, organizational leaders, clinical staff, clinicians, cleaning staff, parking valets, pharmacists, lab technicians, front desk staff, and …
What’s the one word to improve the well-being of clinicians?
One cold winter night many years ago, someone dropped off a calico cat and her two kittens in our snowy driveway, and we went from a two cat family to a five cat household. I learned a few things from that.
When I was a resident, two thirtysomething family docs had an office upstairs from the residency program. Ned and Peter precepted us, and they sometimes ran downstairs to ask the …
Why managing physicians is like herding cats
You’ve worked hard for your money, now make sure it works for you.
We all want our money to grow and grow and be there for us when we ask for it, serve as our nest egg during retirement, eventually go to our kids, grandkids and charitable accounts when we leave this earth. But if we don’t take the necessary steps now, our money will not do this for us.
This is …
6 ways doctors can make their money work for them
Whether we are aware of it or just letting it happen in the background, every day we are teachers, and we are learners. In the realm of academic medicine, the roles and relationships are obvious. Attendings teach residents, residents teach medical students. Medical students teach each other, and to a great degree, they must teach themselves. Regardless of our chosen field of medicine, our patients depend on us daily for …
Listen to your medical students and individualize their lessons
Traditionally, many medical students use the proverbial “last summer of their lives” to conduct basic/clinical research, shadow or go abroad. If you want to be a leader in health care or are simply unsure of what to do over the summer, you should try something more exotic and unexpected — work in finance or industry.
Wall Street, big pharma and private insurers have long been the moral punching bags of clinicians …
Want to change medicine? Work in finance.
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Albert Einstein once said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
No matter how advanced our artificial intelligence is and continues to evolve, it lacks the reproducibility of the powerful human instinct, sense of curiosity and constant questioning; especially when resulting in that “wow” moment of important scientific discoveries. Were it not for these powerful traits, medical science could not have evolved to …
Don’t let guidelines guide your curiosity
I recently read an article about how the physicians’ lounge, which was once present in every hospital and an important congregating area for doctors during the day, is now mostly a thing of the past. Although the article was not a new one, it peaked my interest because I’ve witnessed the demise of the physicians’ lounge at close quarters over the last several years.
Speaking too as someone who has …
The demise of the physicians’ lounge is symbolic of the decline of the profession
I’m three weeks into my second year of medical school, and my classmates and I are sharing feelings of being “old” compared to the first years on campus, who are “bright-eyed eyed and bushy-tailed” — not yet jaded by med school bureaucracy, and (rightfully) excited by all the opportunities that lie ahead of them. I’ve also heard a few of them use an often-judgmental term that has always confused me: …
In medical school, not all gunners are created equal
I have spent the last year doing a deep dive into my personal leadership style. I’ve done this for self-improvement and because some great leaders and mentors have challenged me to take a look at my skills. I’ve read countless blogs and books on leadership, specifically women leaders, and how they have succeeded at the helm.
There are a million different things books will tell you to be if you want …
This is the key to becoming a great leader
This past spring, I sat in a lecture hall at the Warren Alpert Medical School at the third annual Transgender Conference. A graduate of the Brown family medicine program, Alexis Drutchas, MD was the co-founder. I remember interviewing for residency and asking her what she was working on; she casually mentioned that she was creating a conference for the transgender community and medical community in the Blackstone Valley.
Three years later, …
Physicians should not be gender police
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
– William Shakespeare
I learned about the Dunning-Kruger effect at a medical conference recently. It certainly seems to apply in medicine. So often, a novice thinks he or she has mastered a new skill or achieved full understanding of something complicated, but as time goes on, …
Having a medical license doesn’t mean you’ve mastered the art of medicine
As someone who talks to many physicians about burnout and life in medicine, I find myself having a lot of discussions about the circumstances of people’s jobs. Almost inevitably, there comes a point in the conversation where someone expresses dissatisfaction about an aspect of their contract or an additional responsibility that was placed on them.
As physicians, we’re groomed to take care of patients. During training, we don’t talk about compensation, …
5 things physicians can do to protect themselves
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