Physician

A debate highlighting gender discrimination in medicine currently rages within the pediatric hospitalist medicine community. The debate centers on the board certification process for "grandfathering" for the new pediatric hospitalist subspecialty which effectively excludes women on the basis of motherhood. For those not familiar with "grandfathering in," this is the process by which a new subspecialty may grant board certification to physicians who have been practicing in the specialty. The alternative option ...

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A book was recommended to me recently by a resident of mine.  It is written by Simon Sinek and called Leaders Eat Last.  I already knew that I agreed with a lot of what Sinek says because I’ve seen You Tube Videos by Sinek that feel like he has reached inside my head and ripped my ideas directly from my mind. Today, I don’t want to deliver a ...

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The emergency room is an interesting place to work. It’s controlled chaos. Walk through the hallways, and you’ll hear people screaming, see others crying, and others wincing in pain. Over time, you get a unique perspective on the human condition. In my years of training and practice, I’ve seen so much. People experiencing their worst days. Others receiving news that will change everything. Some lives ending. Others returning from the brink. Certainly, ...

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The only times I stood in Emily’s room without fear were the day I met her, and the day she died. These days were two long years apart, years of unhealthy snacking and spending most weekends away from my husband and son. When Emily’s name first appeared next to mine as an overnight admission, the resident physician providing the hand-off gave me a clear warning: “Good luck. She is the ...

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While my forty-year parts warranty expired some time ago, leaving me with a snapped fibular styloid process not long after, the ensuing twenty-five years have not resulted in any serious medical encounters until last week.  Following a very pleasant early evening session with our Congresswoman and a sweet snack at home, abrupt abdominal pain progressed in under two hours to a clinical acute abdomen.  As I got dizzy and dependent ...

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I meet doctors in different arenas.  I meet them in clinical settings, at conferences, and by referral. I am noticing a trend. We are keenly aware of what we do not want in medicine. We talk about physician burnout and the impact it has on doctors’ lives.  We know first hand the effect the EMR has on the doctor-patient relationship as doctors spend less and less time in direct patient ...

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On the face of it, this seems like a fairly simple business arrangement. My patients or their employers pay money to a health insurance corporation so they, in turn, have sufficient funds available to pay medical claims for services I render. That simple system seems to work for auto, home, and life insurance. First of all, a little background about me.  I am a board-certified otolaryngologist who did my residency through ...

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There are two versions of “the conversation” we have with men: One is for teenage boys, and it is about wet dreams, sexually transmitted disease, unwanted pregnancy and at one point also about testicular self-examinations. Those have now been edited out of the script, which makes sense to me since I have seen only three cases of that in forty years of practice, all but a couple of them diligently ...

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During my training to become a primary care physician, the importance of preventive cancer screening was ingrained in me. The idea of catching cancer at an early stage so we can better treat it made intuitive sense. But as I’ve learned over the years, the simplicity of this concept can obscure its limitations and make it difficult ...

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