“For me, the team room became a safe space filled with light, stories, laughter, and food. There, my residents helped me read CT scans, interpret CBCs, come up with the differential for bradycardia, and organize my oral presentations. My resident…
Category: Hospital-Based Medicine
Have stethoscope, will travel
Although it was midwinter, the air coming in through the front windows of the Nissan Versa was balmy. The radio was tuned to a local station. It was playing Air Supply’s “Out of Nothing at All.” This is one of those songs you turn the volume up and …
The times we need to be reminded why we went into this profession
Years ago, I watched an interview on TV with nurses who cared for a man dying of Ebola. Their words and actions continue to ring as true today during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as they did then. Their compassion deeply moved me for this man dying…
The impact of current work hour restrictions and OSHA misclassification on house staff health
Over 100,000 medical and surgical resident physicians and fellows (combined, “house staff”) are the first-line physicians for most patients in the nation’s 1,100+ teaching hospitals. Maximum weekly work hours regulated by the Accreditation Counci…
The impact of current work hour restrictions and OSHA misclassification on house staff health
Over 100,000 medical and surgical resident physicians and fellows (combined, “house staff”) are the first-line physicians for most patients in the nation’s 1,100+ teaching hospitals. Maximum weekly work hours regulated by the Accreditation Counci…
In gratitude to our nation’s residents
Of all the unsung heroes of this plague-time, perhaps those who have endured the most are resident physicians. After graduation from medical school, resident doctors spend three to seven years in intensive specialty training before they can practice in…
Experiences in racism of a female resident physician
I am tired. I am tired of you telling me how to respond to racism. I’ve experienced racism and microaggressions as a brown woman my entire life. You have been trying to control my response for just as long. Stop. In high school, when another student to…
Black physicians are tired of paying the minority tax
Here’s a controversial phrase for a doctor to say that needs to be normalized: “I am tired.” As a physician, working oneself to exhaustion for our patients is often seen as a sign of strength and even heroic. As a rare Black male in medicine in the mi…
A physician’s lonely New Year’s eve
The roads are dark and empty at 6:15. Passing through downtown, animated reindeer “fly” through the air in lights on the side of a skyscraper. At the end of the truncated commute, I snag a spot on the second floor of the parking garage—typically rare b…
Grief during the pandemic
With this third surge and our ICUs at zero capacity in Los Angeles, I spent New Year’s Eve alone at my apartment, recovering from a wards rotation I had completed the night before. No revelry or celebration for me this year. For months, this virus ha…
