Megan S. Lemay is an internal medicine physician.
To get to my primary care clinic in Richmond, VA, my patients and I must walk past the Confederacy’s White House. Our emergency room sits in its shadow. Each day, I walk past the three-story white building surrounded by my hospital on three sides. Renamed the American Civil War Museum, it is now repurposed to sterilize hospital staff masks. The faded letters of a long-removed sign on the front read …
Governor Ralph Northam is my governor. I voted for this man. I shook his hand. He works across the street from me. He fights to end the opioid epidemic. He fights for women’s rights. He expanded Medicaid in Virginia. He has enacted programs that will change my patients’ lives. As a fellow physician, I was never so proud of a governor in my state.
I think of him often as I …
Recently, a male physician made public a common, inaccurate, and appalling opinion: Women are paid less, because they don’t want to work hard.
The comment, in the September issue of the Dallas Medical Journal, asserts that women are paid less, because they see fewer patients. This is because women physicians “choose to or they simply don’t want to be rushed.” He writes that “most of the time, their priority is something …
It’s Wednesday, the day after the election. I spent the previous night clicking from one website to another, trying to find someone who was refuting what the others said was true. And when it became inevitable, I held my infant twin boys and cried.
Now I’m in front of my exam room, walking in to see Mr. Bundy. I open the door to find him wearing a red hat embroidered with …
“Thank God you’re still here, Doc! It looks like they already laid off half the pharmacy department! The line is out the door!”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Golati! It’s just a regular day at the VA!” I replied.
October 1st at the VA Hospital was like every other day in most ways. It was still hard to find a parking space in the far-too-small lot. The hallways still bustled with white coats, smiling vets, …
Let’s get one thing clear from the start: I love nurses. My grandmother was a nurse’s aide. My aunt is a nurse. My mother is a nurse. Nurses have been by my side for the most frightening and important experiences in my life (in the hospital and out). However, I’m not a nurse. I’m a doctor. And when someone calls me …
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