Nearly half a million individuals with opioid use disorders are hospitalized each year in the United States. While they are in the hospital, medical providers often treat complications of this disorder, such as bloodstream infections, but rarely direct…
To my residency class: The clock is ticking, its hands spinning around its face faster and faster until I feel dizzy and disoriented. The remainder of the academic year can be measured in days, even hours for some. The carousel is slowing down to let s…
In 2015, I began having in-depth conversations with directors of service, students, and residents about their educational needs. I asked, “What do you need? How can the library budget help you to solve your problems?” Everyone was thrilled to have this…
A patient groans in agony lying atop a rigid spine board, carried by paramedics into the ER, his neck in a protective collar. The paramedics shout a summary of the accident. Monitors are attached to the man, flashing and beeping the cadence of vital si…
In a recent People article, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek shared some good news. Diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in March, Trebek said he was told that he has been responding very well to his chemotherapy regimen, and that he’s in “ne…
It is honorable to fight a battle in the face of an inevitable ending while not knowing when that end may come. First day of third year — the year most medical students take a sigh of relief as they put their Step 1 book on the shelf and prepare to fac…
Several weeks ago, as I was walking through the halls of our hospital, out from an intersecting hallway drove a robotic delivery cart. Unmanned and adorned with sensors so it could tell where it was in the world, it motored along on its way, heading so…
A great deal has been written about physician burnout, especially in emergency medicine. Inefficient electronic medical records, rapidly decreasing resources, increasing job demands, litigation risks, huge debt burdens from training, and on and on. But…
A great deal has been written about physician burnout, especially in emergency medicine. Inefficient electronic medical records, rapidly decreasing resources, increasing job demands, litigation risks, huge debt burdens from training, and on and on. But…
Physicians have a long history of discriminating against patients, and racial discrimination only scratches the surface of current problems facing patients who seek access to care. The Tuskegee Syphilis trials demonstrated how the medical community exp…
