Why should doctors become involved in social media? I asked myself this same question a few years ago. My answer was, “I don’t know.” I saw no redeeming reason to get involved with social media as a physician. At the time, I just s…
Category: Critical Care
Pause for a moment to feel your energy
When was the last time you paused for a moment to feel your energy? I mean, really get in touch with the energy you hold inside your being? Could it be as physicians, we have gotten so used to that stressful feeling or that drained feeling at the end o…
Raising the white flag isn’t about surrendering to a broken system
So here I am. I just finished updating my CV so I can apply for associate professor this fall. And I hadn’t touched it since last year. It needed a lot of work. I look at this, and I think, “Wow.” And then I also think: What about all…
I am an ICU nurse. We are drowning. [PODCAST]
“Tears and sweat drown my face as I try to rip off my PPE and exit the room. I didn’t want to leave him, but I couldn’t bear another second in that reality. A whirlwind of emotions crash over me, and my knees weaken. I thought, “If I can just get…
Sometimes an ounce of compassion feels like a waterfall
My husband Jeremy and I stood just inside the entrance of the NICU, between the front desk where we used to get our bright orange stickers, permitting our entry as proud parents of Reed Robinson, Room 363, and the washing station, where we meticulously…
Don’t look in. What you will see is uncomfortable.
Don’t look in: No, this isn’t a typo, it’s the sentiment many of my colleagues and I feel right about now. After a long stretch of shifts over New Year’s, I needed a mental break, so I logged into my trusty Netflix account and f…
Our patients become an inextricable part of our lives [PODCAST]
“The weekend after Isabelle’s discharge, I take my shoes outside onto the driveway. The sky is a brilliant blue, and green tinges of leaves poke through shells of buds; the wind slips through my fleece. I scrub the spots of blood with an antibact…
The worst code I ever ran
There is value in reflecting on the most difficult experiences, as it affords an opportunity to examine how we act, react and change in response to the forces around us. The most difficult experiences in medicine are often not discussed, as there is ty…
That time my patient swallowed an entire bag of crack
He was the middleman — the man that took the crack cocaine from the main guy, the drug dealer and then sold it to his “clients” and kept a percentage of the money for himself and the rest to the dealer. It was a fine-tuned operation. You co…
Our patients become an inextricable part of our lives
In the early evening, I stand in the grocery store checkout line. A young mother in front of me presses a pig-tailed toddler against her hip as she rummages for her credit card, and a man with silvered hair and a monogrammed shirt shifts impatiently b…
