One of the more common complaints that I hear from medical practitioners in jails and prisons (especially new practitioners) is, “These manipulative patients are driving me crazy!” Well, to be honest, I ran into a lot of manipulative patien…
Category: KevinMD
3 steps to reconnect to who you are behind the white coat
A doctor’s life is a life of service to others. In today’s medical arena that service goes beyond patient care. As early as residency training, doctors have to learn how to navigate their workflow and the energy of nurses and other team members involv…
How depression made this doctor a better physician
Residing in all of us, whether or not we feel it, is an innate zest for life. As a family medicine resident, I live with enthusiasm daily, because I am happy seeing patients, no matter my rotation. From the acute care wards to the family medicine clini…
Burnout prevention should be taught in residency
I was not at all prepared for my transition from being a resident to an attending. Now that there are work hour restrictions and constant oversight during training, graduating residents seldom get a preview of what it feels like to be at the top of the…
When physician pay packages become hospital kickbacks
For a hospital that had once labored to break even, Wheeling Hospital displayed abnormally deep pockets when recruiting doctors. To lure Dr. Adam Tune, an anesthesiologist from nearby Pittsburgh who specialized in pain management, the Catholic hospital…
It is time to consider the health of health care workers
As health care workers, we spend most days in hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and the like — places that are concrete containers for pain and human suffering. And we are bound to be affected by what we see, even if it isn’t apparent. Most people …
Would you trust Alexa with your patient data?
Amazon has opened a new health care frontier: Now Alexa can be used to transmit patient data. Using this new feature — which Amazon labeled as a “skill” — a company named Livongo will allow diabetes patients — which it calls “members” — to use the devi…
A love-hate relationship with nursing
If you went to go to a museum in New York City and saw a live heart encased in glass, still pumping and pulsating — it would be my heart, shredded into a thousand pieces all in disarray. But it still would be pulsating. This describes my life as a nurs…
8 tips for having a baby while applying for residency
Being a medical student is tough, applying for a competitive residency spot is tough, and being a new mother is also very tough. I am one of the lucky women to do all three at the same time. I had my child early August of my fourth year of medical scho…
How anti-vaxxers are just like the rest of us
Whenever I talk about my research on how parents come to decide to reject vaccines for their children, my explanations are met with a range of reactions, but I almost always hear the same questions. What is wrong with those parents? Are they anti-scien…
