“Ms. Taylor*?” “Yes, it’s me. I’m so deeply sorry to you and the team. You all helped me so much when I was here. But I started drinking a day after I left and blacked out.” Two weeks ago, Ms. Taylor was found by her…
Category: Hospital-Based Medicine
Why would any woman discourage a man’s advocacy or support?
A male interventional radiologist who is active in the #HeForShe campaign recently told me that he is being pressured to stop advocating for women. My first instinct was the biggest sigh and eyeroll of my life followed by thoughts of locker room peer p…
What happened to the first name in medicine?
I cannot begin to count the number of misspellings that I have witnessed of my first name. The number of “As” and the pronunciation confuse both first-timers and my closest friends. Its spelling on my first elementary school report card set the rhythm …
A physician’s addiction to social media
For Apple iPhone users, the release of iOS 12 included a new feature called “Screen Time.” Although a number of productivity apps that offered a similar snapshot of phone usage were available before this update, I was never interested in quantifying my…
Reflections after a medical student’s first code blue
We were in the middle of the morning routine – sign out between mouthfuls of eggs and homefries – when the call came in overhead, “Code Blue, 9 West. Code Blue, 9 West.” Just like that, our team snapped into action, the continued banter only thinly c…
The growing role of end-of-life activists
Brittany Maynard was diagnosed with grade 2 astrocytoma, a form of brain cancer on January 1, 2014, her cancer also returned in April 2014, where her diagnosis was elevated to grade 4 astrocytoma, also known as glioblastoma, with a prognosis of just si…
What should physicians do when patients are racist?
Our team is nearing the end of our call day when the ER pages us with one last admission. The ER attending starts with an apology — “I’m sorry,” she sighs, “this patient is a handful. He is homeless, belligerent, has a significant psychiatric history. …
Doctors: Never forget the importance of eye contact
Eye contact is one of the most basic mammalian traits that signals an interaction. Anybody who has a dog or cat at home sees on a daily basis how much animals value eye contact (and with dogs, it signals you’ve lost the battle!). In the case of health …
Should residency programs review their applicants’ social media history?
By now, I’m sure most of you probably have heard about the Cleveland Clinic first-year resident who was fired last September when it became known that in 2012 she had tweeted she would “purposely give all the yahood [Jews] the wrong meds …” The website…
Why doctors-in-training need better nutritional education
Obesity is a global epidemic, and its prevalence is increasing in every part of the world. While we have new medications and complex surgical techniques that promote weight loss, the awareness of healthy eating habits and dietary education are still th…
