“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable.”
– Fred Rogers
Cheslie Kryst, a former Miss USA, lawyer, and entertainment correspondent, died by suicide. She was smart, beautiful, accomplished, and young.
A police officer was quoted saying, “Not only beautiful but she was smart — she was a lawyer … she has a life that anyone would be jealous of. It’s so sad.”
The message about suicide continues …
Recently, I was on several calls concerning the precipitous rise of COVID-19 cases and the burden to the health care system. There’s no doubt that we are at a point where challenges become crisis, and crisis becomes collapse. The constant influx of “breaking news” into our psyche has blunted any ability to decipher the nuances of this escalation.
But as this is not our first go-round, most stakeholders have already exhausted …
There are few silver linings related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but one that stands out is the growing recognition that health equity must be an essential guiding principle for health care organizations going forward.
The broader health care system suffered greatly due to the coronavirus outbreak that has infected tens of millions and killed hundreds of thousands nationwide, but vulnerable patient populations and marginalized communities were far more susceptible to long-term …
An excerpt from PLAYING DOCTOR – Part One: Medical School: Stumbling through with amnesia.
As was her habit, she [the surgical chief resident] had called to check in with a surgical nurse to see how each of her patients was doing. They were discussing each patient when the nurse stopped to mention that there was a code team outside a room …
Bunnell. Colles. Dupuytren. Erb. These and countless other names litter the lexicon of orthopedic surgery. Eponyms abound from the moment one enters residency, providing prime “pimp” fodder for senior surgeons to accost trainees.
Besides striking fear into the hearts of residents in morning conferences, eponyms do serve another purpose. They preserve our history.
Contributions of giants in the field are immortalized, perpetuated every time one glimpses a characteristic X-ray or particular pathognomonic …
An excerpt from At Heaven’s Door: What Shared Journeys to the Afterlife Teach About Dying Well and Living Better.
What brings you here?
I ask this question of every person who steps through the door because they have come to talk about death—the most universal of all human experiences yet the most difficult to discuss.
In modern culture, we have an uneasy relationship …
From 2013 to 2017, I was in the Air Force, selected to become an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, and would soon embark on my residency journey to get there.
Up until this point, my educational path was linear. I completed undergrad and committed to dental school during my first year as I was accepted into a fast track 3:4 program which meant that I would complete three years of undergrad followed …
As a surgical intern, my days started early, and I was tired as I entered Mr. M’s room that evening armed with a nasal feeding tube and lubricant.
Mr. M was an African-American gentleman in his early 50s. He looked worn and much older than his years. Mr. M had end-stage liver disease and was on the liver transplant list. With a distended abdomen full of fluid, improving his nutrition and …
Microaffirmations are the antidote to microaggressions. Microaggressions are the little insidious comments or acts of barely perceptible injustice and bias that bite and nip and slowly erode our confidence in our belonging, worth, and power. As I continued the medical training journey, I continually searched for the antidote. Mere protection against the daily barbs and arrows was not enough. I needed more than protection- I needed an offensive strategy as …
The doorbell at my father’s house rang, and the dogs went crazy. A physician was at the front door who had requested to come to pay his respects and to check on my father, as he had lost his wife (my mother) of more than six decades just days before.
He sat with us at the kitchen table, and we spoke briefly of other things: dogs he never thought he’d own …
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
The World Health Organization defines burnout in its International Classification of Diseases as chronic workplace stress that has not been adequately managed, resulting in depletion, mental distancing from one’s job, and reduced efficacy. Physician burnout rates were already …
The U.S. Congress is considering regulating one of the most lucrative and powerful companies in the U.S. because teenage girls are attempting suicide over algorithmic images of female bodies.
As an MD-technologist, this is my jam. For over ten years, I’ve been obsessed with how technology makes us sick and how it can be used to make us healthy. So what can we learn from …
An excerpt from Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom–at Last. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO.
For many months, Leila could not stop ruminating about the fateful event of spilling coffee on her ex–mother-in-law’s tunic. Images from the traumatic event on her son’s wedding day returned repeatedly, intermingling with related …
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How can you know that science done quickly during a crisis is good science?
This question has taken on new relevance with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Researchers developed vaccines in under a year — easily breaking the previous record of four years. But that pace of development may be part of the reason about 1 in 7 unvaccinated adults in the U.S. say Read more…
I am a physician at a critical access hospital. I manage both the ER and inpatient service and am the only physician in the hospital. This is the reality for many rural hospitals across the country. With no urgent care in town, and with primary care offices few and far between, these hospitals see everything.
We see patients with ailments from a minor finger laceration to those with septic shock from …
The calls started during dinner.
“I forgot to get my med refilled, and now I’m out. Can you call it in?”
“I’m reading these colonoscopy prep instructions, and I see I was supposed to stop eating seeds a week ago. Should I still take the prep?”
“I haven’t had a bowel movement in three days. What should I do?”
The calls continued during the night. As usual, there were a lot of bowel prep …
As a family medicine physician, I am not sure about a whole lot as we turn into the third year of pandemic living. I can’t give you a decent prognosis of where Omicron is going to take us or how many it will take from us. I am not even sure of the public health approach at this moment where COVID seems to outsmart us repeatedly. (A reminder that this …
In the ongoing saga of the pandemic, there is the debate whether to wear a mask or not. These are physical masks that temporarily hide our face, but we all wear another type of mask, a metaphorical mask. These are the masks we put on to present who we want the world to see. People who are referred to as having “high functioning autism” often put on the greatest masks …
I have been following the controversy surrounding the approval of the new Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab with great interest. Until a year and a half ago, I worked as a neurologist in an adult general neurology clinic. Many of my patients had dementia. While I thoroughly enjoyed seeing these patients and their family members, I often felt helpless when treating them. When I left clinical practice to explore a non-clinical career …
As a working mom of three kids and an emergency medicine physician, I have had to embrace home workouts since before the pandemic. I am a huge Peloton fan! In December of 2020, Robin Arzón, VP of fitness and an instructor for Peloton, partnered with Shonda Rhimes (creator of Grey’s Anatomy) to do a series about Rhimes’ book Year of Yes.
The power of saying yes. In 2020, just pre-pandemic, I …
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