Rosalind Kaplan is an internal medicine physician who blogs at her self-titled site, Dr. Rosalind Kaplan.
In the last six weeks or so, the practice of medicine has been turned topsy-turvy by the COVID pandemic. Those weeks seem like an eternity. We have been so consumed with testing and treatment coronavirus, flattening the curve, and figuring out how to wear a mask without having our glasses fog up, that it’s hard to remember health care before COVID.
But let’s try, just for a minute. Let’s try to …
Working in urgent care, I’ve started supervising some of the other providers at sites other than my own — 19 sites in all in Pennsylvania and Delaware — so I hear about a lot of patient situations.
The urgent care site where I work is in an affluent area. Most of our patients are employed or retired and have health insurance, though I have certainly encountered a number of patients …
2019 is here.
I started my year by doing an urgent care shift on New Year’s day. It was not quite as busy as I expected; most of the shifts I’ve done around the holidays were high-volume, with lots of flu, other respiratory infections, and lacerations sustained while cooking holiday meals. New Year’s day was a little slower on the illnesses, but the acuity of the injuries was high. That’s what …
A few days ago, I made a call to my neurologist’s office. The fourth call about the same issue. I needed my migraine medication and wasn’t able to get it. I was almost ready to give up and give in to having migraines on a daily basis. None of the usual preventative medications have worked for me, so I am on one of the new, hi-tech injectable medications for migraine …
I’ve been out of medicine a little over a month now. The first couple of weeks were crazy; I ran right to Boston to my MFA residency, and was too busy to really process much. When I got home, there were a lot of people and things to catch up with, and I had to figure out how to manage my days. I made sure I was getting my work for my MFA …
I’ve only worked four shifts of urgent care so far, but four 12-hour shifts means I’ve seen a lot: a lot of patients, a lot of different ailments, a lot of different reasons that people come to urgent care centers.
I have to admit that this has been a breath of fresh air for me; compared to primary care, I work less frequently, I feel like the monetary compensation is fairer, …
Nobody punched me in the face. Maybe I would have preferred being punched in the face, though. And yes, I was bullied. I’m not going to talk about my own experience in this post however, because I already have post-traumatic stress disorder from the experience. I’m not ready to revisit it in detail yet.
I don’t need to talk about myself to tell you about bullying in the medical arena. I …
I think a lot about quitting medicine lately. A lot.
Then I have a morning like yesterday morning:
I see a patient I’ve known for more than twenty years, caring for him through an adrenal tumor, a major gastrointestinal surgery and now renal failure, for which he needs a kidney transplant. As we review his last set of labs (stable, thank goodness), he is sanguine, hopeful. He may have found a donor, …
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