In a recent talk I gave for colleagues, I ventured outside the box. I searched for a metaphor to make cancer treatments easy to understand. Around the same time, it so happened my kids decided we needed to re-watch all of The Avengers movies at home. (…
While winter is traditionally the busiest time of year for pediatricians, this winter has been particularly difficult in the Midwest with not only a larger number of ill visits, but a late and heavy flu epidemic hitting at a point where most of us were…
If you think you are the only one being threatened by the chief medical officer (CMO) and/or the medical executive committee (MEC) think again. If you’re thinking it is going to get better or that they have your best interests in mind, also think again…
In May 2018, it happened. The American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) opened its floodgates. As we wrapped up our last years in undergrad, we felt a twinge of excitement as we finally began applying to medical school. But we quickly found …
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 …
Back in the 70s, Dr. Denton A. Cooley would do eight or so heart operations a day often on babies and children with heart defects. One day, he operated on four babies. Three of them died. It was around eight o’clock at night, and as Dr. Cooley wa…
K: “I was assaulted by an intoxicated female. She punched me and ruptured two discs in my back. I lost my whole self. I could no longer take the CPR course required. I lost my income that was supporting me and my three children. I needed the narcotics …
Physicians are leaving medicine due to being physically and mentally exhausted. Most tragically, the United States loses one physician a day to suicide — an astronomical number. Physician burnout is a crisis that has been brewing in medicine for years….
“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…
Recently the CEO of a large health care network stated: “Market forces don’t apply to health care.” Of course, economic and political forces apply to health care. Big Medicine’s most powerful entities (insurers, hospitals, medical schools, pharmaceuti…
