“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort,” says James Austen. So, instead of traveling and waiting for hours by standing in a queue, what if health care is provided to you at home? That’s why home hospital care (HHC) is…
Category: Hospital-Based Medicine
A shout out to small hospitals
I’m a small-time doc in a small town, and I work at a small hospital in the Midwest, and I’m proud of it. The huge university hospitals (like Cleveland Clinic) get all the glory (especially in society and in the press), but small hospitals like mine dr…
A message to physician job recruiters: First impressions count
More than half of all physicians in the United States are employed by health care organizations, and the numbers have been trending upward since 2019. Recruiters who work for health systems are tasked with finding the best physicians available, and the…
The painful anniversary of Dr. Susan Moore
“You have to show proof that you have something wrong with you in order for you to get the medicine. I put forth, and I maintain that if I was white, I wouldn’t have to go through that.” – Dr. Susan Moore. In a 7-minute-and-22-second …
Pay heed to the little life traumas that hit us daily
In a world where everything is fast-paced, I believe we miss out on some stuff that deserves our attention. Just like we need to stop and smell the roses, we need to stop and pay heed to the little life traumas that hit us daily. For today, I will jot …
When retirement is code for “You’re fired!”
A colleague announces he is retiring. Unknown at the time is the fact that there were a series of fires and suicides committed by patients at the psychiatric facility where he was chief medical officer during the year prior to his departure. State inve…
Did the unvaccinated just save my rural hospital?
It’s no secret that rural hospitals have been struggling. According to online data from the University of North Carolina, 137 rural hospitals have closed in the U.S. since 2010. In Appalachia, the rural hospital where I work, which is staffed by …
The displacement of the health care family
Along came COVID, and no one was prepared. We had minimal PPE. We were told to put our N95 mask in a paper bag, use it on every patient, and use it for one full week. Normally the N95 mask would be disposed of after each patient room exit. Health care …
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…
You are standing on holy ground
One of my favorite passages from sacred writings is the story of Moses, still tending his father-in-law’s sheep, an ordinary day in an ordinary place, suddenly encountering God, the ground he stood on now consecrated into holy ground, admonished …
