“Sir, please calm down,” she says nervously, glancing around to see if anyone had noticed their interaction. “No, I will not calm down. Where is your boss? You don’t know what you are doing!” He gets up and starts walking …
Category: Hospital-Based Medicine
A seasoned trainee: A doctor who shouldn’t have been
Residency and fellowships are tough. While most trainees come in and expect medicine to be the most challenging thing they have to deal with, what makes a training program challenging to navigate seems to be entirely something else. Having trained in p…
Courage the Cowardly Dog: an intern’s perspective
It’s the first day of residency. This morning, the intern was exuberant: the white coat was starched with pride, and the stethoscope brought a new sense of prestige. In last night’s lengthy sign-out, the intern proudly asked relevant questi…
We can’t expect large medical centers to absorb every case
My small community ED has a fairly high acuity. As such, I was recently trying to transfer a couple of patients, one of whom was an NSTEMI, pain-free but with a rising troponin. In the process of trying to arrange things, I learned that our main region…
When physicians get sick: We are just as human as the patients we treat [PODCAST]
“My experience with recent knee surgery that left me significantly disabled for over a month brought this to my attention yet again. I was completely dependent on others for basic self-care since I was unable to get in and out of the tub/shower w…
Medicine, fast and slow
Thinking, Fast and Slow is a well-known masterpiece of psychology by the formidable Daniel Kahneman. He diligently illuminates two different pathways of thought, which he arbitrarily titles System 1 and System 2. System 1 describes our quick thinking, …
What do you picture when you think of health care?
What do you picture when you think of health care? How different is that from your vision of health? Is it possible to connect these two mental images? Can they be merged directly or at by way of a bridge? When I envision health, I see images of vitali…
Anesthesia touches nearly every area of medicine [PODCAST]
“I suppose those of us between zero and ninety-three are blessed in our own way as well. We are here, swirling in a jumble of the inconsequential and consequential. We’ve enjoyed some of the world’s beauty and reserve the potential to experience …
A CEO with the keys to the kingdom. And the pharmacy.
1986. I graduated from LPN to RN. And I was immediately offered a new job. Manager of a six-bed ER. This hospital had three surgical suites — 50 inpatient beds and 2 L&D suites. This was a private Catholic hospital run by the nuns. The computer sys…
After 4,380 days, a pair of Danskos — and a calling — fall apart
My Danskos literally disintegrated last month. I was in the hospital team room, finishing up my patient notes at the end of a busy hospitalist shift. I happened to look down at the floor, and there they were: black chunks on the carpet. I thought, “Who…
