Early voting began recently in Texas with unprecedented excitement, as a record 15 million registered voters made their way to the polls. Reports say polls are looking more like Black Friday shopping lines than early voting locations. Although we canno…
There is a saying among students that medical education is like “taking a drink out of a fire hydrant.” The simile evokes the torrent of information and the impossibility of taking it all in. The type of people who are admitted to medical school aren&#…
The nature of the crime? Bringing my reusable food container down for meals. I just wanted to avoid the Styrofoam plates and plastic silverware, but the lunch ladies were convinced I was asking for two portions’ worth of side dishes and then only payin…
During my flight from Denver to Japan, I watched a movie called Un Traductor. It is a true story directed by the children of the couple who are the main characters in the movie. The reason why I chose this movie was that there was a Brazilian actor in …
On November 6th voters in Massachusetts are facing a very important health care-related question. In addition to voting for political parties in the midterms, they also face three ballot questions. The first of these is whether there should be mandator…
I remember sitting in my residency academic adviser’s office as I was discussing the plans I had designed for my community project at the end of my intern year. I can only imagine what she thought as I looked at her with a blank stare when she ha…
There are medical honors so rare you don’t even know they exist. When you’re trudging through the slog of PBK/AOA/other — ultimately meaningless — letters, these seem to be the definition of distinction. Just like every other lesson, a patient taught me what real prestige is. Well, it wasn’t entirely that Oslerian, it was the […]
I’ve had this idea brewing for a while. It’s taken a while for it to form shape, to work its way from a random niggling thought in my head to something I can articulate with the passion and determination it inspires in me. On labor and delivery: There is an “I” in team. Yes, I […]
The discharge process has now been recognized as one of the most crucial points at which the actions of doctors and hospitals can have a huge impact on immediate health outcomes for our patients. At a time when 30-day readmission rates are still touching almost 20 percent for Medicare patients (higher for certain patients, with […]
It’s 8:00 p.m., and it’s hour 14 in my 28-hour call shift at the large suburban hospital where I’m an intern. You demand to speak with a doctor now, right now. You cannot wait. Your mother is sick, and you want to know exactly what is going on. It doesn’t matter that we already spoke […]
