“How many lives did you save today, Dad?”
That is what my kids would ask me, rather sarcastically, many years ago, when they were young and when I arrived home late, missing our game of backyard basketball. They knew I was a neurologist. And, of course, they knew I didn’t exactly save lives since, as I had explained to them many times, my job consisted of giving folks lots of medications …
An excerpt from Becoming Doctors 25 Years Later: Twenty five physicians sharing the journey from medical student to retirement.
I’ve been out of med school for twenty-five years now. Somehow, I thought by now I would be the beloved owner of my own practice, my name on the lips of every family in town … or a full professor sitting comfortably …
It was a cold day in Durban. Sixteen degrees Celsius is cold for us on the East Coast of sub-tropical Africa.
I had made a trip through the suburbs to drop something off for my theatre scrub sister. The roadblocks are manned by community commandos, most of who are my patients and it’s easy to pass through.
On the way back to the hospital, I passed a queue of cars more than …
When it comes to running, I am 100 percent pure-bred, authentically average. I love to run, but I don’t ever expect any record-breaking times. Did that woman in a hot-dog costume just pass me on the course? Sure did! As the Olympic games are upon us and we watch and admire the best-of-the-best, I challenge us to recognize and celebrate the Everyday Olympians among us: the “average” who always show …
Life is full of hierarchies — whether you are the older brother in the family, the supervisor in a company, a chief resident in medicine. There is always a hierarchy. It is a pecking order that keeps our society organized. You know where to look for guidance. Who is the person above your title that can help you with a challenge you are facing?
Even within surgical specialties, there is a …
When watching the news or reading articles about COVID-19, the physicians who contribute are often in internal medicine, epidemiology, emergency medicine, etc. You do not typically see psychiatrists contributing to discussions on the virus itself but more about the mental health ramifications of COVID-19.
Psychiatrists are also not often considered integral in the role of vaccine educators. But I argue that they, in fact, play a vital role in educating a …
Caring for patients is not only a clinical endeavor, it is also an ethical one. Patient care and ethics are woven together as an integral part of every doctor-patient encounter. Medical schools have traditionally taught students the principle-based ethics approach of autonomy, beneficence, non-malfeasance, and justice. These abstract principles are often applied to “big” patient care situations, such as physician-assisted suicide, organ transplantation, and withholding/withdrawing treatment. The life and death …
“Embrace dialectical thinking, stupid!”
That’s the mantra I repeat when I catch myself getting worked up about a deep-seated belief, idea, or cause. Understanding the flip side of the equation helps me to neutralize powerful negative feelings like righteous indignation, bitter disappointment, and utter disgust with the incompetence of fill-in-the-blank.
Dialectical thinking is the ability to view an issue from multiple perspectives. Embracing it helps us recognize that it’s almost always possible …
You are about to see my patient in some acute setting. Maybe it’s the emergency department. Maybe it’s an ENT consult or ortho. In any case, you just met her. You do not have much of a relationship with her and are just evaluating one part of her health.
And yes, of her many comorbidities, you notice that she has a high BMI. Be her chief concern for back pain, apnea …
My maternal grandmother, Susana, was one of the most important women in my life. I was named after her. At least, that is what I thought for many years.
I had gone by my grandmother’s name until I transferred high schools in the suburbs of Chicago, and the registrar asked me to confirm my name. I told her, and she said, “No, your name is Susan. It’s on your birth certificate.”
I …
The flames flicker, tantalizingly reaching upward, and I sit mesmerized. How many times have I sat by my backyard fire pit and watched this ageless dance? I think; I meditate; I pray. A cigar and bourbon often accompany me. I especially love to stand by it while the snow falls, enveloping me in all its beauty. The memories are many, and they are good.
My sons are with me around the …
Omar Mirza is a psychiatrist and comic creator. In this comic, he discusses how Black, indigenous, and other people of color are excluded from VIP floors at an academic medical center (click to enlarge):
Omar Mirza is a psychiatrist.
Image credit: Omar Mirza
I had an uneasy weekend.
On the one hand, I was watching the COVID-19 figures around the country and in my region of KwaZulu-Natal. We are waiting for the third wave to hit our hospital. Last week we stopped planned surgeries and reviewed our planning and capacity to deal with the surge.
On the other hand, I had been sunk by the images and reports of violent protests related to the imprisonment …
I had just finished a grueling orthopedic residency. Yet once again, I was on the run and bearing bad news. I was sprinting from a well-known Mumbai hospital to a nearby hotel room. But this time, the bad news wasn’t for the family of one of my patients. It was for my mother.
As I waded through the crowd whose constant overflow from the sidewalk onto the road left a shifting …
Let’s face it, what’s getting most physicians down is not their patients. No, ask any group of physicians what the hardest part of the job is, and you’ll like get a pretty consistent response: It’s the EMR! With studies showing that we spend, on average, two hours on “paperwork” for every hour in the room with a patient, there’s no question that it is a massive time suck for most. …
Thanks to the marvels of medicine, newly vaccinated Americans are returning to life as normal and partying like it’s 2019. Doctors, who are emerging from the pandemic as national heroes, would like to turn back the clock even further—to the halcyon days of 20th-century medicine.
But doctors, unlike their maskless and freewheeling patients, will be disappointed with what the future holds.
Trying to turn back the clock
Physicians have had a rough century, …
It takes a special person to care for people during their most vulnerable states, to keep intimate details about people while remaining compassionate even toward the seemingly vilest of persons. The white color of a physicians’ coat can be a metaphor for the purity expected of physicians. A physician’s signature or words carry weight. With such power comes the responsibility to be trustworthy.
Documentation is an important part of patient care. …
A challenge: Pick a time during residency training where the burden of patient care and education coalesced with scarce family time or social life, and the urge to quit lingered on the back of the tongue. Think about someone you reached out to, whether it be a co-resident, attending, mentor, and think about their response. Was it positive? Or was it something along the lines of: “You’re lucky, I didn’t …
Chiefs, remember, one of those interns is going to fill your shoes in a few years. They may model you in that role, so you want to raise them well! As a former chief resident, I have lots of pearls for those entering residency. However, what I will tell you now is different from what I would have told you then. I have since learned that there are possibilities to …
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