Is it possible to break down a complex phenomenon like professional burnout into a simple triad? We do it for exotic diseases all the time, so why not?
I still remember my salad days in med school vividly. Bouncing between the cockiness of amassing an entirely new body of knowledge and the awkwardness of having nary a clue how to use it, it was excitement I hadn’t felt before or since. …
The 3 killer B’s of physician burnout
My father worked as a middle manager in the textile industry for many years after he graduated with a degree in textile engineering from Georgia Tech in Atlanta. As far as I know, he was the first to graduate from college in his family. I can only imagine how exciting it was for him to leave the little town of Cochran, travel to the big city of Atlanta, work to …
What happens when a community loses its health care providers?
Someone told me that the reason certain others don’t respect my advocacy on behalf of physicians more is simply that I am a woman. I am seeing this the more I speak up on issues facing doctors these days. It is now the 21st century, and there are a large number of women practicing medicine. In fact, the number of men and women entering medical school these days is nearly …
Eliminate the stereotypes about female doctors
If you attended medical school, you learned in week one that American health care started becoming scientific in 1910, with the publication of the Flexner Report. Before then, only some medical schools were authentic while many others were anything from carnival booths to outright frauds.
Abraham Flexner, a respected educator, had been hired by industrial barons John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, who were determined to bring health care out of …
My physical therapy education occurred within Harvard Medical School. My college, Simmons College, worked with Harvard in those days to prepare us (13 women) to enter the field with knowledge and respect for the roles and rules of clinical medicine.
In 1966, I was taught to stand up when a physician entered the room, to hand over the chart and open the door. There was never any doubt who was who. …
We owe our physicians the promise of satisfying careers
One of the latest trends in health care is “patient choice,” meaning the patient is in charge of their own care. Our job as a physician is to educate patients about the diagnosis, discuss the various treatment options, go over risks and benefits, then allow the patients to choose the best course of action. Of course, this assumes that patients always make the right choices and are solely motivated to …
Patients are in charge of their own health care ship
As we drown in the overwhelm of modern day health care duties, most physicians I know, including myself, fail to follow their own advice. Far too many of us have become overly tired, irritable and resentful about our workload. It is difficult to look forward to the dawn of the next work day.
Medical journals and blogs label this as “physician burnout” but the reality is very few of us are …
Advice physicians should follow. But don’t.
Patients forming an opinion of your practice are doing so in a matter of seconds. And some of the latest research on first impressions, suggest that it may even be within the blink of an eye. Regardless of the length of time, first impressions are powerful and very difficult to reverse. So, if a patient has formed a bad opinion of you and your staff, during the first point of …
Make a good impression on your patients. Here’s how.
Americans spend more per capita on medical care than just about any other country and, yet they often have little to show for it. Americans have worse access to care than people in other countries, and are often less likely to receive primary care services, like preventive therapies and screening tests. Determined to address these problems, Medicare leaders have been testing out new models of primary care, hoping to find …
The government tried to fix primary care and failed. Here’s why.
Classic rock music lovers who think they don’t like poetry, and literary purists who think they don’t like popular music, may have been equally baffled to hear that Bob Dylan is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. As an unrepentant English major, I’m delighted.
I can’t remember a time when Dylan’s music wasn’t a part of my growing up, from the rebelliousness of the anti-Vietnam era …
Poetry and music tell stories of universal experiences
A recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine once again questions two practices that used to be almost the backbone of primary care.
One article is about the low likelihood that prostate cancer detected through PSA screening will shorten a man’s life, even if he chooses just to keep an eye on it.
The other article is about how repeated mammography screening mostly leads to the diagnosis of small and …
Why physicians face a serious credibility problem
I recently spent an evening with a group of medical oncology fellows as part of a small panel discussing career alternatives. There were doctors who worked for pharma, academic medical centers, hospitals and a couple of us representing private practice. The questions and comments taught me more than I could contribute. I was surprised to learn not just about jobs and personal futures, but about something basic: the difficulty in …
Quality doesn’t always equal success for doctors
Martha arrives for an appointment with her new primary care provider. She hesitantly hands over her pill boxes at the nurse’s request; it seems to take forever to enter them all into the computer.
“You are taking a lot of blood pressure pills,” he comments. The doctor comes in and after a brief introduction, notes that she is taking five medications for her blood pressure.
“Five?” Martha exclaims in disbelief. She hadn’t …
Patients are often the victims of medication creep
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Independent physicians are at the beginning of a challenging movement as we fight to stay relevant and solvent during the transition of health care from independence to “regulation without representation.” In 1773, British Parliament passed the Tea Act with the objective to help the struggling British East India Company survive. Opposition to the Act resulted in the return of delivered tea back to Britain. Boston left the ships carrying tea …
Defiance will inspire progress: Physicians should not surrender at any cost
Several years ago, I was meeting a young woman in my clinic for the first time. She was healthy but had been obese most of her adult life, even though she had tried many methods of losing weight. We spoke for a few minutes about diet and exercise, and she agreed to see the nutritionist.
A few months later, she came back to check her progress. She had lost weight, about …
This doctor stopped telling patients to lose weight. Here’s why.
Self-entitled, self-absorbed and selfie-obsessed. These are just a few adjectives critics use to describe the millennial generation of today’s 16-to-36-year-olds, born between 1980 and 2000. Born in the early 80s, I both understand the criticism levied against my generation and simultaneously empathize with many of my peers who were raised in the digital revolution and, thus, see the world differently. The unique and, at times, bewildering views of millennials pose …
Selfie-obsessed millennials can teach doctors a thing or two
Recently, an African American female physician was prevented from providing help to a passenger in distress on a Delta airlines flight because she didn’t fit the flight attendant’s image of what a doctor looked like.
The racial and gender issues that this event highlight are readily apparent. As a South Asian, I have to say I’ve never been told I don’t look like a doctor on a racial basis. If anything, …
Don’t assume that you know what a doctor looks like
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
It made the rounds on social media this winter: a photo of a coffee mug with the words “Please Do Not Confuse Your Google Search With My Medical Degree.” Colleagues shared and retweeted it, feeling a sense of vindication. I have to admit that …
Dr. Google isn’t all bad: Patient engagement might help outcomes
Modern families are an ever-changing nucleus of the pursuit of happiness, well-being, success and security. Medical families are no exception to that; in fact, I believe they are deeply centered on such values and aspirations. While some might believe that growing up in a medical family is a blessing, others may tell you it’s a bit of a bittersweet reward.
Growing up is a tough job, regardless of who your parents …
Growing up in a medical family: The good and the bad
It is hard, perhaps impossible, to take the measure of a man in thirty minutes. However, there is still much that can be learned. After enjoying an evening meal in Tampa with friends to celebrate my birthday, my wife and I summoned a Lyft to get home. The ride would be about a half an hour. As is characteristic of the new ride share companies, notably Uber and Lyft, I …
The kind of person who makes this country great
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