When I was a third-year medical student in 2006, I was assigned to spend the day at a well-known women’s health clinic in Toronto. I walked into the procedure room and introduced myself to the attending. His first words to me were: “Are you married?” I…
As medical students, we are asked to learn in exquisite detail the ins and outs of rare diseases that we may never encounter in clinical practice. Yet the education we receive on caring for a population numbering in the millions is sorely lacking, and …
This past June, California’s Department of Healthcare Services went live with the implementation of its non-medical transportation (NMT) benefit. NMT is described by the National Health Law Program as “transportation provided to access medically necess…
When we all lived in villages, knowing individual merchants allowed you to identify and avoid the cheats. As we urbanized, brand names became the reputational marker. But when you are dealing on the internet, where no one “knows you’re a dog,” what gua…
This article is sponsored by Careers by KevinMD.com. According to the 2018 Medscape National Physician Burnout Report, 42 percent of physicians are burned out. Of the doctors in that group, 56 percent place the blame squarely on the plethora of tasks t…
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. An 81-year-old woman is evaluated for a 1-year history of headaches, redness of the face, and itching. She indicates being otherwise capable …
The rotations on adult medicine and critical care are probably the most challenging ones for the residents doing internal medicine residency. No matter how much we try, we tend to feel overwhelmed, fatigued and swamped sometimes. As we progress into re…
In my clinical practice, I have encountered patient aggression typically with narcotic medications, in particular with the refusal of a refill due to evidence of concerning behavior, like a positive drug screen for drugs not prescribed. Aggressive beha…
The United States spends more of their GDP on health care than any other developed nation, and yet it produces some of the poorest outcomes — notably in the field of maternal and infant health. The advent of digital health has presented the opportunity…
According to the NASEM report, half of women medical students experience sexual harassment before they start their careers as physicians. The numbers are even higher for people belonging to minority groups. This harassment is generally overlooked and t…
