Physician

With burnout on the rise, many physicians are choosing to leave clinical medicine for alternative careers. Other physicians are wondering if it’s worth it to stay in a workforce that does not pull for the well being of their front line workers. Gone are the days where physicians stay stuck, suffering in a practice or career that is no longer fulfilling or worse, causing burnout. Those physicians are considered old-school ...

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My late father often repeated the adage, “Any man who serves as his own lawyer has a fool for a client.” We physicians may not represent ourselves in court, but we often try to treat ourselves or neglect our own medical care — and end up with a fool for a patient. My uncle was a family physician who practiced in the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. He was my childhood hero ...

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Last month on February 3, 2019, we celebrated National Women Physician’s Day (NWPD). Created in 2016 by the Physician Mom Group (PMG) in collaboration with Physicians Working Together (PWT) and Medelita, NWPD honors the first female physician in the U.S., Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and highlights gender inequality in medicine. The day is a social media “holiday” of sorts, with timelines flooded with inspirational posts of women in white coats declaring ...

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I found myself in the privileged position recently of participating in the National Stop the Bleed Research Consensus Conference, at the table with an extraordinarily committed and compassionate group of thought leaders exploring the role, challenges and implications of this crucial initiative. My perspective as a consultation-liaison psychiatrist interested in trauma-informed care was aptly described as “a different lens,” though my colleagues appeared to require no convincing of its relevance. When ...

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Though many are not thrilled about the April 15th deadline, death is an even more inevitable part of life than taxes. Sometimes we try to lessen the impact of death through our words:  bit the dust, bought the farm, kicked the bucket, flat-lined, passed on, checked out, gave up the ghost, met his maker, paid the piper, put out of his misery, laid to rest, six feet under, pushing up daisies, ...

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Rural hospitals are closing their obstetric wards and stopping all obstetric services — at least those hospitals that manage to remain open at all. The tertiary care centers don’t seem to mind.Always wary of those rural hospital disasters in the middle of the night. Accepting transfers from a place where they must not have the latest technology, clearly, your little hospital must be behind the times, only subspecialty care is ...

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“Guys, are you alright in there?” I ask casually while taking the first bite of my dinner on a 24-hour PICU shift. No answer. “What is going on? Why is she beeping so much? Is her tube blocked?” My voice gets louder. Complete human silence. Except for the deafening hypoxia monitor going to 30s. Heart rate monitor dipping to below 60s. All this beeping was coming from a six-month-old girl with a history ...

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In 2006, the Mayo Clinic asked 192 patients an important question: What makes an ideal physician? From their responses, several characteristics emerged. Among the top criteria, they wanted doctors to be “personal,” “empathetic” and “humane.” This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Of course, we want doctors who relate to their patients as people instead of just another “case.” We want doctors to have sympathy for ...

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I haven’t counted how many times this happens every month, but I find it annoying. I send a prescription for a drug (sometimes not even expensive) to the pharmacy and soon after, I get a fax asking me (or my medical assistant) to go online and print a prior authorization form to complete and fax to the insurer, or answer numerous qualifying questions on the screen, or (worst of all) 
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