“Compassion fatigue” is a phrase thrown around easily when talking about the health care professions. It is often spoken in the same breath as “burnout” and “turnover” while discussing the crisis of a diminishing wor…
Category: Hospital-Based Medicine
Physicians need to acknowledge implicit bias
“Oh, you’re here to take me to my test.” I have heard this too many times to count, and I have come to perfect my response. “No, I am not patient transport, your social worker, or your nurse. I am your doctor.” After a moment of confusion, I usually s…
Making humanism in medicine more humanistic
Kahlil Gibran writes, “In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.” What types of outcomes can physicians and patients achieve in healing, living, and life when Gibran’s mes…
The power of peer mentorship in medicine
If you asked me five years ago what my career goals were, I may have said something about getting more grant funding and writing more manuscripts so I could eventually become an independently funded physician-scientist. But honestly, at that time, I ha…
Changes are coming to health care in 2020. Are you ready?
Of the nation’s 3.5 trillion in annual health care spending, 90 percent is for people with chronic and mental health conditions. How long can this continue? Can health care institutes afford not to engage in the 2020 wave of preventative care health ca…
Setting the facts straight about The Joint Commission’s stance on food and drink
A spirited discussion erupted over The Joint Commission’s role in prohibiting food in patient care areas: “Taking food and drink away from doctors and nurses is just cruel.” The rumor that The Joint Commission is the enforcer of food and dr…
Please stop the over-diagnosis of UTIs
I admitted an elderly woman to the hospital recently. The previous week, she had presented to the emergency department (ED) with chest pain and shortness of breath. For some unknown reason, a urinalysis was obtained and was found to be abnormal. The…
In the midst of physician burnout, remember the privilege of being a doctor
I read the recent article on KevinMD: “I’m sorry: Why I lost my love for medicine” with great sadness. My heart goes out to the author; many of their concerns echoed deeply within me. I am sorry that we, as physicians, haven’t effectively succeeded in …
Medical school ends with a leap of faith
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s a question I frequently hear from physicians on my clinical rotations. Phrased somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the wording allows me to answer either in jest or in earnest. “An astronaut…
My name is not “Med Student”
“I should explain to you, Socrates, that our friend Cratylus has been arguing about names; he says they are natural and not conventional; […] that there is a truth or correctness in them.” – Plato I once heard that the sound of one’s …
