Meet Dr. Svetlana Kleyman, a powerhouse chief surgery resident with a heart of gold, who works 16-hour days and runs marathons in her free time. Just 18 months before she was to graduate from SUNY Downstate, she developed a spinal infection that left her paralyzed from the waist down. After months of rehab, she was cleared by her doctors to resume work …
Guilt was not a huge part of my vocabulary until I became a mom. I never felt much guilt about how I spent my time. Didn’t feel guilty about sleeping in, or working out, or having a girls’ night out. And so on and so forth.
And then I became a mom. You know, that moment when you get shoved into the most beautiful world; a place more beautiful than you could …
Three weekday call shifts left and two more weekends. The light at the end of the tunnel is shining bright, and I am relieved to be walking towards it. The only question that remains is what will I have left of myself and my life when I get there?
I started residency with a husband who I loved more than life itself. I was codependent to a fault, never wanted to …
A few months ago, I got the dreaded 2 a.m. consult from the emergency department. I met Mr. Smith, a man with a very strange looking and inflamed gallbladder. The abnormal appearance on ultrasound meant we had to discuss the possibility of malignancy. Instead of the usual 15-minute spiel about removing the gallbladder, I spoke to the patient and his wife for nearly an hour. I drew the anatomy. I discussed …
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
With the recent expansion of ambulatory surgical centers, the number of outpatient surgical procedures has increased at an exponential rate. Coupled with the rise in volume has been the increasing complexity of procedures and underlying diseases of patients. The convergence of these factors …
A surgical resident writes:
I’m sure you have read several recent studies suggesting that current general surgery residents are poorly trained and unprepared for independent practice at the completion of residency.
My questions for you:
1. In general, do you agree that current general surgery residents are poorly trained and unable to operate independently at the completion of residency?
2. What should we do differently? I personally don’t feel that “more simulation activities,” which …
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be surgeons.
Really. Don’t.
As the mother of a soon-to-be fellowship-trained surgeon, I know what I’m talking about. Listen to me. Ignore Willie Nelson. You don’t want your babies to be doctors; you want them to be cowboys.
Really.
Yeah, yeah, I know, your daughter is a whiz at all things mathematical and/or spatial. And your son is a science prodigy. Their eye-hand coordination is legendary …
Every two or three years, someone, usually a hospital administrator, decides that delays in operating room turnover time need to be looked into. A committee of 20 or 30 stakeholders (love that term) is appointed and assigns someone the job of measuring the time between cases and identifying reasons for delays. In years when turnover time is not being studied, first case starting delays are on the agenda.
In my nearly …
Recently, two states in India halted all use of Avastin for the treatment of eye disease following the report of 15 patients who underwent emergency surgery for potentially blinding infections at the C.H. Nagri Municipal Eye Hospital in Ahmedabad. Though further investigations are ongoing, there is worry that the cluster of infections centered around a tainted lot of compounded Avastin. This most recent event serves as a reminder of …
Today is a remarkable day for me. I’m officially leaving private practice after almost 18 years, to return to academic medicine with a faculty position in a highly regarded California department of anesthesiology.
Why would I do that?
There are many positive reasons. I believe in the teaching mission of academic medicine: to train the anesthesiologists of the future, and the scientists who will advance medical care. I enjoy teaching. The years …
The parental drive to protect your child is passionate, and learning that your child needs surgery is jarring at best and terrifying at worst. As her guardian and provider, your instinct is to prevent harm to her at all costs, and even if you know that surgery is ultimately in your child’s best interest, the thought of her going through an invasive procedure, combined with the presence of illness or …
As surgeons we are privileged to have our hands work inside someone’s body with the intention of alleviating suffering, removing sources of pain, excising diseased organs, fixing this or that, ultimately to improve someone’s quality of life, prolong it or at times even save it.
Yet we also know that people can suffer complications from surgery, that in some cases are fatal, and where our good intentions seemingly backfire. Patient deaths …
What does a 3 year old know?
If you don’t like our toddler’s opinion, just wait; she’ll change her mind in a few seconds. The ever-changing mind of a 3-year-old is what makes the fact that I decided to be a doctor at that age all the more amazing. But, that’s how old I was when my parents took me on a mission trip to Haiti, and I decided I wanted to …
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In September 2010, a seasoned pediatric intensive care unit nurse administered an accidental overdose to a critically ill baby, giving ten times the amount of calcium that was prescribed. Five days later, this baby, with an already tenuous heart condition, died. The nurse recognized her mistake immediately, informed her superior, and also told the family and physicians. She was, however, escorted out of the hospital, put on administrative leave, and …
“I admire anyone who has the guts to write anything at all.”
– E. B. White
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
– Ernest Hemingway
“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.”
– Mark Twain
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
– Maya Angelou
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at …
“For some must watch, while some must sleep.”
– William Shakespeare, Hamlet
I admit, I was taken aback at the headline that ran in the Houston Press today: “Going under: What can happen if your anesthesiologist leaves the room during an operation.”
It’s bound to make the curious reader wonder why the anesthesiologist would leave the operating room in the first place.
Of course, reporter Dianna Wray explains that in many hospitals, one …
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Wrong procedure, wrong side/site, wrong implant, retained foreign object: big problem. No patient should ever have to undergo these types of events, and they are therefore called never events. However, these events do occur and when they do they not only jeopardize patient safety but they also breach the trust between patient and practitioner, have financial implications, and reflect negatively on the entire health care system.
The good news is never events …
Medical oncologist, Dr. Ranjana Srivastava wrote on the subject on how doctors treat doctors may be medicine’s secret shame in the Guardian back in February 2015.
About a month later, vascular surgeon Dr. Gabrielle McMullin used a book launch speech to expose the problems of sexual harassment in the surgical profession. She highlighted a story of where a neurosurgical trainee had refused sexual advances and subsequent to launching a formal complaint, …
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
I often hear patients say, “I am not afraid of the surgery, just the anesthesia.”
But should patients worry? Physician anesthesiologists suffered a crisis in confidence in 1982 when the ABC television program 20/20 aired, “The Deep Sleep: 6,000 …
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“To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.”
– George MacDonald
As we adjust her position on the surgical table, I spot some short, vertical scars on the front of her neck. The parallel slashes sit directly over her enlarged thyroid — a goiter — and appear to have been deliberately placed. There are two sets of scratches, one set on either side of the neck, nearly identical in length and evenly …
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