Physician

An excerpt from When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error. One of the selling points for the electronic medical record (EMR) was that it would be a boon for patient safety. Just having all the medical records in one place is a monumental improvement over ...

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COVID-19 essentially shut down my in-person primary care practice, and we immediately turned to telemedicine (“seeing” a patient virtually either through a phone or video-based visit). My primary care group did this out of necessity, but nobody predicted how much we would like it, or how effective it can be for patient care. The most obvious benefit is time savings. There is no travel time – for me or the patient. No ...

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COVID-19 has upended the medical community. Nowhere more so than in the intensive care unit. Life as an intensivist with two young children and a working spouse is never dull. I liken it to tight-rope walking with a pole for balance. I wake up every morning and balance the clinical responsibilities, teaching, reviewing journals, learning, school assignments, lunches, after school activities, bedtimes, repeat, repeat, repeat.  The balance remains just ...

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An excerpt adapted from Being Authentic: A Memoir. Our existence is fragile. I learned that in many intricate ways, long before the COVID-19 pandemic, so I do not take today for granted. I do not know what tomorrow will bring. I do not even know if tomorrow ...

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Career transition is talked about a whole lot more these days than it was in 2004.  Maybe I just notice it more now.  Back then, I felt like I was the only one doing it.  You know how it is when you are going through something difficult, and you feel utterly alone and unsure about what you’re going to do tomorrow?  That was me, only I also felt like a ...

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They are physicians, mentors, partners, mothers, sisters, friends, colleagues - but most evidently, at the moment, they are heroes. I (virtually) sat down with five women physicians, at all points in their medical careers, who are working in several of the largest emergency departments in Texas, to talk about their experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the themes that I heard from each of these physicians was that the inevitable ...

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I am writing this as I lay in bed, feverish, sweaty, and persistent dry cough. I have been sick with presumed COVID-19 for the past ten days. I have quarantined myself from my wife and two sons, unable to hug or reassure them that everything will be okay. Additionally, my wife is 39 weeks pregnant. Therefore, I will be unable to accompany her in the delivery room and may not ...

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Health care is enjoying an abundance of positive attention as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. My question, my challenge, is how can we sustain this love-fest between the public and the health care profession even after we obtain a vaccine or an effective treatment for COVID-19? Let’s be perfectly honest: six months ago, the American health care system was considered, even by physicians, as broken and in dire need of ...

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I rounded recently on a 100-year-old veteran of the Battle of the Bulge. It was a terrible and costly battle fought in Belgium during the winter of 1945, the coldest and snowiest in memory at that time. The German army made a desperate last stand against an increasingly overwhelming US force. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. He was there. He lived it. It is not a forgotten memory ...

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