Cory Michael, MD

Cory Michael is a radiologist.

Inequity contributes to burnout among new academic physicians

Physician

December 29, 2021

I was still a resident in May 2013. My new long-distance girlfriend gave me directions to take the train from the airport to the opposite side of her massive metroplex. As is likely common for a hayseed like me, I got lost finding the correct rail station and instead walked through the city’s large academic medical center by accident. With luggage in tow, I walked past a 900-bed county hospital …

Missouri and Texas: a tale of 2 COVID cultures

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

April 17, 2021

The Major League Baseball season is in full swing, and nothing reflects the variable nature of our country’s response to COVID-19 better than how major cities are continuing to respect (or ignore) the virus and their baseball teams are handling fans. In Toronto, they are not even letting the Blue Jays play in their country, while in North Texas, it is as if there isn’t even a virus out there …

The coronavirus vaccine is not a political or social issue

Cory Michael, MD

Physician

March 24, 2021

It has been over a year now since shelter-in-place orders struck fear into many, forced millions into unemployment, and taught us all the meaning of the term “supply chain.” It didn’t take long before the chants of “flatten the curve” and “support our health care heroes” dissipated. Once more was known, many industries figured out to cope safely while others just decided to cope unsafely. The government stepped …

Vaccinating athletes will show us if the vaccine works

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

January 18, 2021

As I watched the vaccine rollout take place over the past month, all I can say is that I am not surprised. I watched hospital executives who never see patients jump the line, doctors having their healthy nannies vaccinated, and health systems trusted with vaccine doses have essentially no plan. It’s like we didn’t have 9 months to figure this out. All I can say is that this is the …

Assisted reproductive technology helps good things happen to good people

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

September 13, 2020

It is hard to imagine an age in which assisted reproductive technology (ART) did not exist. The CDC reported that 1.7 percent of U.S. births in 2017 were attributable to ART, with approximately 285,000 ART cycles reported that year. In reality, the process is not as straightforward as it may seem on paper.

As a radiologist, I was involved peripherally with patients struggling …

The path to a healthy nation starts with the you, the voter

Cory Michael, MD

Policy

August 22, 2020

It is hard to envision that this is an election year. With a paucity of campaign ads and the presidential nominees locked up for quite a while, I didn’t even know that the Democratic convention was going on until I saw a report about it after the fact.

With election day now on the horizon, I reflect on the common mantra used almost every time an incumbent …

Public health, not medicine, is what will save us

Cory Michael, MD

Physician

July 19, 2020

In a small community not far from my hometown, Paul sat peacefully in his self-built abode on a July day like just about any other. Happy to experience the peace of his bucolic life far from the hustle and bustle of the city, he rarely visited a doctor despite a festering back ailment that limited his ability to work. He had no retirement savings and no plan for life after …

Safe restaurant practices as crisis therapy: lessons from a bartender

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

June 27, 2020

With a leftover airline credit to spend, I recently decided to take a quick trip down to southern California and make one of my routine treks along Interstate 5 from San Diego to Orange County. I wanted to see how the area was dealing with the pandemic and enjoy some sun.

No trip would be complete without a visit to my favorite bar in Encinitas, which had expanded its barbecue offerings …

Why we must keep learning from the coronavirus pandemic

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

June 14, 2020

Looking back on the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, I hope that we are able to take away several lessons.

Immediately after the virus showed up in the United States, many physicians without access to virus testing seemed to go straight to imaging for an answer. While a few imaging tests proved to be useful in the most typical radiologic presentations of the disease, the evidence supporting this specificity or …

The health effects of a bad economy may be worse than COVID-19

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

June 6, 2020

Thinking that it was time to think about what sort of long-term mask I would like to procure to wear in public as the summer approaches, I got to thinking, what sort of mask defines me as a person? Is it the stagecoach robber triangular bandana? Is it a standard medical ear-loop mask? An OR mask has to be tied, and wearing an N95 respirator in public while hospital workers …

Public health requires a broader, longer-term assessment of the pandemic

Cory Michael, MD

Policy

April 30, 2020

Many government officials have begun to lift some restrictions on elective surgeries and procedures for hospitals. This means that some of those of us in medical professions not on the COVID-19 front lines will be returning to a workload closer to the pre-pandemic phase soon.

For weeks, my radiology department has been relatively empty. Some have felt that having fewer personnel in the department has left us unnecessarily short-staffed for patients …

Capitalizing on what we know from other pandemics, with a little help from Major League Baseball

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

April 23, 2020

Before the age of modern understanding and drug development, HIV sparked fear, anxiety, and panic throughout the country. My eighth-grade science teacher was the first to teach me about HIV, a virus that makes so many mistakes in replicating itself that it confuses the host’s immune system with its mutations. So fascinated by this bizarre product of biology, I knew then that I wanted to study viruses. I read all …

The impact of removing numerical scores from USMLE Step 1

Cory Michael, MD

Education

April 13, 2020

I recall clearly the effect that the first step of the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) had on my medical education. The test is generally taken at the end of the second year of medical school, about halfway through the 4-year curriculum. What made the test so important is that its result could effectively rule a student out of certain highly competitive specialties (e.g., dermatology, orthopedic surgery, …

Understanding science means realizing that science doesn’t always have all of the answers

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

April 12, 2020

The impact of science on the well-being on our planet has never been more important than it is now. We are all looking to science and technology in a search for answers and resources. We keep watching television in search of these answers, but we are left unsatisfied because we don’t understand medical science.

A great deal of what we know as doctors comes from other doctors. …

The effects of physical distancing will be long-lasting

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

April 6, 2020

As a radiologist, it should come as no surprise that I am not a “touchy” person. Not only do I remember the first MeToo movement that coincided with the 1991 Clarence Thomas hearings, but I just assume that people don’t want to be touched unless they initiate it. A resident told me that my face turned pale two months ago when a medical student I was quizzing in …

People are ignoring social distancing guidelines. We must get it together.

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

March 31, 2020

I recently received a postcard in the mail titled “President Trump’s Coronavirus Guidelines for America.” The first of these recommendations is to follow the directions of my state and local authorities.

In my community, notable restrictions on commerce have been handed down by my governor, my mayor, and a county judge. This has had a crippling effect on our local economy as we brace for the storm to get worse. For …

Help our health care heroes take care of you

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

March 27, 2020

The goal of “flattening the curve” regarding the novel coronavirus pandemic is to slow transmission such that we avoid seeing a large unmanageable peak of infections at once. It doesn’t necessarily mean that fewer people will be infected from start to finish, but it probably does mean that the outbreak will be extended to spread our resources out over a longer period to allow for replenishment. Simply put, we are …

Coronavirus can be controlled, but we must embrace sacrifice

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions

March 19, 2020

In the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, a friend of mine relayed a troubling story to me recently.

My friend is a dermatologist who is 9-months pregnant, living and working in a county with no known community spread of the novel coronavirus. After spending time examining a 19-year-old with acne, the patient told her that she was under self-quarantine due to exposure to the coronavirus in New York. Her college in New …

The sad demise of an idealistic family physician

Cory Michael, MD

Physician

January 6, 2020

Graduation from my residency program was a bittersweet experience. At the time, my specialty was suffering from a crippling job shortage, so our futures were uncertain, and a dark mood had come to permeate my radiology residency. We were disgruntled with the specialty, with the system, and with medicine in general. I attended my graduation without any guests and only stayed long enough to receive my certificate.

I was, however, honored …

The continuing battle between the emergency department and radiology

Cory Michael, MD

Physician

December 28, 2019

I overheard a disappointing phone call while supervising a radiology resident recently. I could tell that the resident was struggling in a conversation with an emergency department physician, so I asked him to switch over to speakerphone. Eventually, I heard the emergency physician say, “Listen. This is how it works. A patient points to what hurts. Then I have that part scanned, and you tell me what is wrong.”

Disheartening as …

Cory Michael, MD

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