Matt was 40, my sister’s age. He was training for a marathon and trying to talk his many friends into joining. He lay in bed with his three-year-old son every night to help him fall asleep. It’s hard to sleep train a toddler with a newborn to nurture a…
1. Cover your patients It was my first year of practice. One day I saw a new patient, a 25-year-old man with hemorrhoidal pain. My nurse told him to disrobe and put on a lap sheet. When I entered the room, I was surprised to see that the young man was …
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi Burnout among physicians is at an epidemic proportion. National data suggests that more than 50 percent of our workforce is burned out, and this tre…
“Why did you wait to schedule this meeting until September, why not July or August?” Candidly, I replied, “I have a family and being on nights, spending those 90 minutes with them a day is very important to me.” It was then, behind cl…
Going to medical school was a dream come true. I was excited; I couldn’t wait. I spent my childhood dreaming about it. It was this amazing fantasy in my head where nothing was impossible, and I would be able to help thousands of people, maybe mil…
AI, artificial intelligence, is all the rage right now in medical news media. And this has many practicing physicians, even medical students, concerned. Will AI make diagnose heavy specialties such as dermatology and radiology obsolete? Can AI give ris…
People are told by big media that doctors will probably hurt you and you will never see it coming. They are told to stick up for themselves, be an advocate for your child/parent/dependent. Ask for more tests. They must be missing something. Ask for…
Doctors by our nature do not handle idleness well. We value our vacations, of course. I never sought out a study to see if doctors vacationed differently than others. Some probably hang out someplace warm, others seek out the best eats of the place the…
Rural hospitals are closing their obstetric wards and stopping all obstetric services — at least those hospitals that manage to remain open at all. The tertiary care centers don’t seem to mind.Always wary of those rural hospital disasters in the middle…
In 2006, the Mayo Clinic asked 192 patients an important question: What makes an ideal physician? From their responses, several characteristics emerged. Among the top criteria, they wanted doctors to be “personal,” “empathetic” and “humane.” This shoul…
