Wellness initiatives are not always yoga or nutrition advice or Zumba classes. They can also be filling clinicians’ requests or solving their problems. I first realized this when a social worker included receiving full-text articles that she requ…
Category: KevinMD
Our terrifying chickenpox problem
A Kentucky judge rejected the claims made by a teenager who sued his local health department for temporarily barring students at his school who aren’t immune against chickenpox from attending classes and participating in extracurricular activitie…
If medical students are already experiencing burnout, how are they going to survive residency?
My interest in understanding burnout among medical trainees started during my second year of medical school. With Step 1 nearing, I noticed a dynamic shift in my classmates. The growing tension, petty arguments, and constant worry surrounding our futur…
How this physician reconnects with nature
On this beautiful spring day, “Nature is my medicine,” wrote Sara Moss Wolfe. And yes it is mine as well. As Albert Einstein stated, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” Some days that reassurance is all it takes to …
Why doctors crash planes
Physicians actually make good pilots. But, in 1966 they received a bad rap due to a report published by the FAA’s Chief of Aviation Medicine, Dr. Stanley Mohler. Mohler had a point. Physicians were crashing planes at a higher rate as opposed to the gen…
Why this burned out physician turned to meditation
There are aspects of practicing medicine that will always be challenging and stressful, even in a perfect system. Avoiding dangerous drug-drug interactions. Keeping up with the overwhelming amount of new data on diagnostic and treatment modalities. Tel…
I’m sorry that we couldn’t save you
Five days into my emergency medicine clerkship, I had experienced a lot of firsts: My first participation in a code, my first CPR compressions, and my first patient death. This was specifically a code blue for a patient with pulseless cardiac arrest. A…
Why do I love being a 43-year-old physician?
“Are you the doctor?” was the most frequently asked question I received from patients in my new practice. The second most common question was: “Are you old enough to be a doctor?” followed by the rather blunt question “How…
5 parenting mistakes I make as a pediatrician-mom
I have been a medical doctor for 19 years, a pediatrician for 16 years and a mom for 11 years. Being a mom is — hands down — the hardest but also enhances my work as a physician (though I would not admit this before I had my own children). My work at w…
How rocks and crystals can be more nourishing than we know
When I was a kid, one of my favorite hobbies was adding to my rock collection. In the summer, I went on road trips with my family to explore the national parks, and at every gift shop, I always gravitated towards the bin of tumbled stones. To me, this …
