For those who haven’t been following, earlier this month, Dr. Carol Warfield, a Harvard doctor and chief of anesthesia at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was awarded a settlement of $7 million dollars for gender discrimination. It was a massive settlement to be sure, certainly one of the largest ever for a gender discrimination case.
But the large dollar figure is not the real story here. The real story is found in ...
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Once upon a time a doctor first attended 3 or 4 years of college, then finished 3 or 4 years of medical school, trudged through 1 to 8 years of residency training to hang out “a shingle,” and finally begin to practice medicine, usually in solo practice. Those days are long gone. Time has expanded—schooling and training are longer.
Breaks are taken between and during this once but no longer traditional ...
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Here are the sad the financial facts. You have heard them before:
A war is brewing in the House of Medicine. It's a war of philosophy based on how we physicians approach our patients--the people who come to us to be cared for and to be cared about. The people who come as patients to the physician as healer, a healer who also has a wealth of scientific knowledge which can be used to stamp out disease and bring long, healthy lives ...
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I remember the first gunshot wound I treated in the emergency department at Jacobi Hospital in the South Bronx 35 years ago. Only one of two I saw that month in the second busiest trauma ER in the country. Gang fight. Troubled youths. In the middle of the night. Hand guns.
We couldn't save him. I was devastated. My chief resident, an aspiring trauma surgeon, took me aside and matter of ...
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Physicians are being attacked in many ways and in many places. It is no longer about how able, available, and affable you are. It is about how well you toe the line when it comes to going along to get along while being watched by an ever increasing line up of watchdogs. Many of whom have sharp teeth.
Here are a few questions that might indicate you are headed for trouble:
Do ...
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Outrage #1: Wasting time of skilled caregivers. Everyday skilled nurses and physicians’ assistants waste hours of time on the telephone either getting approval for medications that we prescribe for our patients or trying to fight a rejection for a medication we requested.
Outrage #2: Choosing a medication for cost, not effectiveness. A child cannot breathe because the acid and other nasty stomach ...
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Did you know that urine pregnancy tests are routinely performed on all females before every surgery? No exceptions. The Children’s Hospital in Buffalo tests 9 years and above. Don’t know if a parent or a patient has a right to refuse the test, but I do know that the anesthesiologist will refuse to give anesthesia, except for a life-threatening emergency.
I have never paid much attention to these tests. The nurses ...
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It is nearly impossible to ignore the need for clear thinking, confident and “in control” leaders. And whether in Congress or in a physician’s office, medical school department or hospital administrative suite, women leaders are notably absent. And while recent research tells us that women aspire to be leaders, the barriers to achieving this nebulous goal are enormous.
So whose fault is it anyway? I say both the women and the ...
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I was trained at a time when medical care was not a commodity. It was part art, part science, and not delivered in bits in pieces but imparted with an eye to the whole patient.
And I was trained by a master of the art and the science and the whole patient. Dr. Robert Ruben has spent his life studying the effects of communication disorders on the lives of children who ...
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"A comprehensive and extremely useful roadmap for doctors."
-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
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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 TakeIf I’m wrong about guns, can you please explain why?
Claire McCarthy, MD | Physician