As a law student, I recently was a legal extern at a hospital this summer. It’s a crazy thought because when I started medical school back in Fall 2015, my bus would pass through the pick-up/drop off zone at the hospital every single day at 7:43 a.m. I…
Did you know that the traditional doctor’s white coat that you probably associate with your physician actually was a look that doctors “borrowed” from another profession? Back in the early days of doctoring, to add some perceived legitimacy to the titl…
I shared my assessment and plan with the preceptor as she walked into the room. She cut me off, “You think this patient needs surgery?” she smirked. “He has no idea what he is talking about, don’t mind him,” she whispered loudly to the patient. I kept …
I shared my assessment and plan with the preceptor as she walked into the room. She cut me off, “You think this patient needs surgery?” she smirked. “He has no idea what he is talking about, don’t mind him,” she whispered loudly to the patient. I kept …
When we think about clinical reasoning, most talks focus on diagnostic errors and the reasons for those errors. The legacy of Kahneman and Tversky focuses on errors and the many named mistakes we make. We focus on avoiding errors, but their work and to…
“Planned death.” When you put it like that, this can only mean one of two things: suicide or murder. For most of us in medicine, the very idea of “planned death” seems safely outside our purview. After all, the bulk of medicine is concerned with stavin…
Many consider the novel the House of God, written by Samuel Shem (pen name for Stephen Bergman), to be a must-read for any physician or soon-to-be physician. A fictionalized account of his internship year, the book details how the accumulated stress, f…
In May 2019, headlines of a study out of University of Michigan hit the lay media: “New Doctors’ DNA Ages 6 Times Faster Than Normal in First Year.” Using DNA samples submitted by medical residents across the country, the Intern Health Study measured …
As a community of physicians, I’m sure we have heard the phrase, “I just want to get well, doc,” from our patients. Have you ever wondered what does “get well” really mean to them? As a third-year internal medicine residen…
As a community of physicians, I’m sure we have heard the phrase, “I just want to get well, doc,” from our patients. Have you ever wondered what does “get well” really mean to them? As a third-year internal medicine residen…
