Category: Hospital-Based Medicine

Questions of a canceled whistle-blower

This is not a story about the before.  It is about the after. When I blew the whistle on the gender harassment I experienced and witnessed within my workplace, I naively thought doing so would help. I thought opportunities and experiences for women wou…

Mansplaining in medicine and how to solve it

My friend (I’ll call him Dr. Mensch) reached out to me because he fears that a gender war is unfolding in his division. He is worried that current cultural concerns about gender equity are degrading the previously harmonious relations between male and …

Human connections, cancer care, and COVID-19 restrictions

The desire for human connection is so irrevocably and putatively a tenet of the human condition. The relationships we form with one another are quintessential in adding value to our lives and in fostering loving bonds. And the way we express this conne…

He would never be ready. This was his son.

It was the blanket that killed me.  Made for a child.  Cushy, colorful, and crisscrossed with cartoon quarterbacks, clean-up hitters, and cheers like “Rah” and “Go Team.”  What father doesn’t want their son to be the high school hero? Under the blanket…

It’s not every day the head nurse on a medical floor accompanies a physician on a consultation

An excerpt from Act of Negligence. Copyright © 2021 by John Bishop. All rights reserved. Published by Mantid Press. Beatrice Adams Monday, May 15, 2000 “Morning, Mrs. Adams. I’m Dr. Brady.” There was no response from the patient in Room 823 of Universi…

The weight of the pager

I have heard from more than one retired anesthesiologist about becoming aware of the weight of the pager after it is relinquished. I imagine other physicians engaged in critical care, trauma (physical and emotional), other emergencies, and obstetrical …

The world should be more like a children’s hospital

For 15 days, we lived at Children’s National Medical Center when our daughter Evelyn was diagnosed with leukemia. As a physician, I had felt like I had lived at the hospital before, but this was different. The first few days were a blur – long days fol…

How photography made me a better doctor

In my first year as an attending hospitalist, I personally discovered what Hippocrates realized millennia before, “Life is short and the art long.” Clinical reasoning is an intellectual labyrinth that can only be mastered with deliberate practice, intr…

Patient satisfaction through a hospitalist lens [PODCAST]

“In addition to leaking private information to an unauthorized individual who just happened to ask for Ms. Mann by name, Larry commanded Nigel to worsen this HIPAA violation. Given the tone of his command, Larry must have felt right proud of his …

Here’s the secret to establishing a great physician reputation

Summer marks a flood of young new attendings hitting hospitals all over the country. There will also be many doctors whose first contract is coming to an end, and they are moving to a new position. Both of these scenarios create an opportunity to make …