Exhausted. Aching. Hungry. Slightly delirious. Mile twenty-four of a marathon? Or hour twenty-four of a twenty-eight-hour shift? I am a resident. I am a runner. I am also a rather tired human since, as I type these words, I’m both post-call and p…
Category: Hospital-Based Medicine
Residency training, and training in residency
Exhausted. Aching. Hungry. Slightly delirious. Mile twenty-four of a marathon? Or hour twenty-four of a twenty-eight-hour shift? I am a resident. I am a runner. I am also a rather tired human since, as I type these words, I’m both post-call and p…
A physician’s plea to Santa Claus
I am a pediatric hospitalist in middle America. I believe in you, and I hope that you believe in me. Many of my patients’ parents do not believe in me, you see, and it makes it hard for me to do my job and to take care of these children in the way that…
Physician gives in to police pressure to conduct a forced invasive rectal exam
Recently, news broke about a disturbing act of medical battery carried out by doctors at St. Joe’s Medical Center in Syracuse, New York. The case began when police officers conducted a pretext stop and elected to harass their victim about a small amoun…
Physician gives in to police pressure to conduct a forced invasive rectal exam
Recently, news broke about a disturbing act of medical battery carried out by doctors at St. Joe’s Medical Center in Syracuse, New York. The case began when police officers conducted a pretext stop and elected to harass their victim about a small amoun…
How to transfer residency programs
Even though physicians do not talk about transferring residencies, it is more common than is often believed. According to the AAMC website, about 30 percent of residents do not finish the initial program they started. Quantifying that number further, t…
Having a baby makes you a very different physician
Beeeeeeeeeeep. The unmistakable long beep of my bright-red code pager broke the rhythmic sound of my trusty breast pump. I grabbed the pager silently praying it was a “test page.” No such luck. As I read the Code 45 message, I heard the overhead announ…
Stop shoving metrics down nurses’ throats
One time, I applied for an emergency department (ED) nurse manager position. I thought I had the job locked up until I was asked during the interview how I would “enforce metrics.” “Enforce.” My holistic, qualitative research-based response to this aut…
What’s the biggest problem with medical education?
There has been a profound deterioration in the education of our medical students. I only make this contention after having taught over a hundred medical students across five continents, often one-on-one and for extended periods. Although the majority o…
What do you do when all else fails with a patient?
“Does a rock float on water?” I asked the haggard woman lying in the ICU bed. I was an intern, in the first rotation of my medical residency, and Mrs. Jones had been my ICU team’s patient for the past week. Over that time, she’d…
