“Then why did this patient come to the hospital? You haven’t done anything to help this patient,” the attending physician said angrily during our morning rounds, upset that the patient had not met their urination output goals during treatment for heart failure exacerbation.
A hot flush crept up my face. Tightness clenching my chest and stomach. What was this feeling I felt? Shame. The entire team attended morning rounds — the …
The first time I heard the song “Truth Be Told” by Matthew West, tears welled up, and I cried. I was driving home after a long day at the clinic. The song resonated with me in more ways than I could soak in.
Lie number one: You’re supposed to have it all together
And when they ask how you’re doing, just smile and tell them, “Never better” …
I had this mental construct …
An excerpt from I Watch You Sleep: A Doctor’s Tales of Anesthesia and Chain Restaurants.
Medicine on television is often inaccurate. As a physician, it bugs me to see my field misrepresented. It is even rarer to see anesthesiology represented at all on TV. I’m sure lawyers scream …
World events have me thinking about boundaries. Countries have boundaries. Often they are based on the land’s physical features, but not always. Boundaries are created over time and may need to change for various reasons. So too with our personal human boundaries.
When we speak of personal boundaries, we can mean the physical boundaries of our skin. Or we may mean the psychological or social boundaries that we live with and …
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.
Recent data from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has shown a sharp increase in drug-related overdoses attributed to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, deepening the tragedies of the already challenged opioid epidemic and COVID-19 pandemic.
Unraveling the snowball effect of these public health …
Primary care is a field that is both highly rewarding and highly challenging. Those who enter into it quickly find that they are rewarded with the satisfaction of knowing they are playing a vital role in the lives of their patients. However, they also soon realize the immense responsibility of the job. There are always more patients that need to be seen, more phone calls that need to be returned, …
Misinformation and public distrust of health care professionals are a daily hazard affecting the health of millions of people. So what can health care professionals do about it?
A new study shows 37% of millennials, or those ages 25 to 34 years old, do not trust their health care providers. The age groups from 35 to 54 years old show 34% distrust their health care providers. At 65 …
Our profession often sends the message that we are invincible heroes.
Here’s my vulnerable and honest admission: I lapped that up. There was something so seductive about denying pesky human requirements, like sleep, regular exercise, and time to decompress. I liked being needed more than I liked having needs.
I sublimated mine under my superhero cape right up until the time I hit a kryptonite wall. There …
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.
As leaders in patient safety, anesthesiologists are committed to improving patient care and positively impacting the experiences of expectant mothers to ensure the health and safety of mom and baby. Along with primary health care providers, anesthesiologists are available to help expectant …
The 2022 Medscape poll on physician burnout confirms what has been painfully obvious to doctors on the frontlines of COVID-19: Their burnout is intensifying.
According to the survey of 13,000 doctors, the nation’s most burned-out physicians are those in emergency medicine (60%) and critical care (56%). Medscape, a leading health care publication, describes burnout as “long-term, unresolvable job-related stress that leads to exhaustion, cynicism, and …
We have probably heard this saying with different permutations many times about someone showing “their true colors.”
As physician and best-selling author, Tess Gerritsen, shared: “There is no better test of character than when you’re tossed into crisis. That’s when we see one’s true colors shine through. So, I try my best to make my characters personally involved in the plot, in a way that stresses them and tests them.”
It made …
Medical-legal consulting is a great way to use your medical training in a non-clinical field that helps people. Physicians all over the country are now doing medical-legal consulting as a rewarding part-time gig.
One service out of many we provide is to give our opinions regarding the causation of traumatic injuries. Some attorneys ask us to provide opinion letters regarding a particular injury caused in a work-related situation, a personal injury …
My residency baby just turned eighteen. Obviously, he isn’t really a baby anymore. He is six foot four and going to college, but somehow, I still think of him as that little baby. Maybe I’m just relieved that “we” both made it to eighteen. By “we,” I mean “me” as a physician mom and “him” as a person. I realize that sounds ridiculous, but honestly, being a physician mom is …
“Yeah, I mean, whatever, it’s a master’s! Have your own damn party.”
My jaw dropped in disgusted shock. The wall was thin, very thin. Come to think of it, it wasn’t even a wall. It was a partition: the separation of space between different office spaces. My mentor uttered these words: Assigned to support, encourage, and guide me through training; the person supposedly invested in my personal and professional growth. This …
Working in health care, going through medical school and residency, changes who you are. We invest so much of ourselves and our potential futures into accomplishing board certification. Once we achieve this feat, we often live in fear of one day losing what we have achieved. After all, many of us have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of dollars, relationships, friendships, marriages, the ability to have children, joys of life, our …
I had my very first surgery ever, just last year. Despite being cut upon, it was a remarkable experience, and the staff cracked jokes at my expense, even as I was going under. In the mood for some inappropriate medical humor? Well, perhaps not in this public forum; I’ll save it for gatherings less formal and where beer is plentiful. Suffice it to say, I survived and was treated well: …
I have always been a lover of words. Confusingly, I have found myself unable to define words that I would have easily been able to describe a decade ago. Due to a more weighty examination of cultural and social constructs, I am now left scratching my head thinking about how to define previously simple words like woman and mother.
When posed with the question, “When did you become a mother,” I …
Doctors who do not practice healthy behaviors but do not exercise are less likely to counsel their patients about improving health practices. Such omissions are a missed opportunity for more effective, safer, and less expensive care, in which patients become empowered to improve their own health.
Physician well-being is also central to the successful functioning of the entire health care system because to do well, you need to be well.
Yet, Read more…
Tuesday, at the podium in a small auditorium, I realized that my time was finally up. Even as an educator/administrator (non-clinical) physician, I was done. Preparing to give a canned talk — a requirement of my current career strategy — facing a group of anonymous medical students, the only thought going through my head was, “Why don’t we blow through these slides and get out of here?”
Normally, I relish public …
How ironic the way a young woman’s thoughts and attitudes change.
We spend so many years — decades, perhaps — preoccupied by controlling our cycles. For some, it is about cycle control.
For others, it is to avoid pregnancy because we are not yet ready or do not want to have a family. In those cases, most start some form of birth control, and for years we wait anxiously to bleed each …
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