Before I started medical school I thought it would be phenomenal to become a doctor. What could be more amazing than to possess a thorough, complete and intimate understanding of the human mechanism? I came to medical school to learn physiology and pathology in their entirety. I could not imagine a more valuable understanding than to fully know the secrets of the human body, what befalls it and how to ...
Read more...
Take a look around you. What do you see? Babies playing with gadgets, four year olds playing with cell phones, and teenagers and adults playing with iPads or typing away on their personal computers. With the exponential increases in technology, specifically the digitalization of communication, in the past decade, our citizens have moved to the point of paying more attention to our devices than to each other.
As we begin to ...
Read more...
Why would anyone want to become a doctor? Seriously. Think about it, because this is a very important question for the future of healthcare in our country.
The future of medicine is somewhat unclear in this age of healthcare reform, but we do know a few things. Physician compensation is currently falling while lawsuits and malpractice premiums are rising. Doctors must see many more patients in a day to maintain their ...
Read more...
I recently learned the sorry news that my childhood pediatrician has died. Not only was he my pediatrician, but he was also my father's pediatrician. Our family became rather close to him over the years.
He came from a different generation of doctors, one that made house calls, that served in wars abroad, and that learned how to diagnose patients in the days before MRIs and CT scans. Even though I ...
Read more...
I am four months into my third year of medical school. The third year is the first clinical year, when students spend most of their time in the hospital, interacting with patients and working as part of the medical team.
Our deans told us at the beginning of the year that we would be talking with patients more than anyone else on the medical team; we would serve as advocates for our ...
Read more...
Hard time is here And ev’rywhere you go Hard times is harder Than th’ever been befo’The opening lines of a century-old Delta blues song rings out among the stars and the dark of a rural Virginia night. I sit tenuously awake atop an old wooden stump in front of a farmhouse, where four minds sleep peacefully inside. It is 3:00 am. From the window I hear the sound of the needle dragging ...
My psych final was this morning, which I am 90% confident I did well enough on to pass the class (which is all I need to be satisfied). Considering I counted watching “Girl, Interrupted” as studying, I say that’s not too bad.
I felt like there were many necessary topics left out of our behavioral medicine and psychiatry course. One of the many: sexual assault.
For the past eight years I have ...
Read more...
It felt good to stuff the stethoscope back into my pocket and slip into the emergency department last night. The constant ringing of phones, beeping of cardiac monitors, and distant wail of inbound EMS units was a welcome cacophony compared to the isolated silence of the library study rooms. Sweeping the curtain back as we stepped into the first patient room, the hours of frustration with biochemical pathways and embryological derivatives ...
Read more...
“Um—Hi there, I’m a, uh, you know. Medical student. First year. For, you know, the Patient-Doctor—err, Patient-Physician course—”
The nurse smiled and turned to a woman of shorter stature with bony, scrunched- up shoulders. “Mary, do you want this first year to interview you?”
Mary was about to set foot in the lounge when she heard this. She let out a sigh and faced me. Her eyes looked worn; I could tell ...
Read more...
I have been thinking a lot over the last few weeks about all the many ways that the experience of medical school has changed me.
The most obvious is knowledge. I've drunk from the proverbial "firehose" of information that we experience in medical school, and apparently enough of the facts stuck with me to pass all my exams, and secure myself a residency program back in my home state of California. ...
Read more...
"A comprehensive and extremely useful roadmap for doctors."
-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
Learn More...
Past 6 Months
Dear lawmakers: This is what it’s like to be a doctor today
Matthew Moeller, MD | PhysicianA gun owner responds to Sandy Hook
Edwin Leap, MD | PhysicianIs Chris Christie too obese to run for president?
Jeffrey Parks, MD | PhysicianPrimary care doctors may no longer be needed
Doug Olson, MD | PhysicianWalgreens moves into primary care, and it’s our own damn fault
Kevin Pho, MD | Kevin's TakeIndependent nurse practitioners are not the primary care solution
Reid Blackwelder, MD | Physician