I lost my attending to suicide. A lot of things about life changed that day. In the days of grief that followed, I was consoled by my mentor who suggested we meet outside on a patch of grass near the hospital. As we shrinks say, we needed time to emoti…
Why is your hospital always full? Actually, it’s more than full. You have twenty boarders in the ED. You turned your postop recovery unit into an overnight surge center. Every day administrators beg you to please, please discharge patients, if possib…
Did you feel a pop? It is a simple question that we rattle off to complete our musculoskeletal history. The answer may or may not give higher suspicion for a diagnosis of tear over sprains. But have you — the provider — ever felt a pop? Like any good p…
I barely remember walking out of the hospital that day. After a nearly 30-hour residency shift, I was in a bit of a daze. I trudged across the main parking lot, staring absently at the coffee-colored snow beneath my boots. I have no memory of reaching …
I lost my sense of empathy when I worked as a pediatrician in a pediatric emergency department caring primarily for low-acuity patients. I worked there for ten years, but it only took about three years before I realized that while I could help kids wit…
Florence Nightingale was among the first nurses who started wearing a nurse’s cap. The cap was derived by nuns and represented those caring for the sick. Hair was neatly tightened into a bun and covered by the cap. Back then becoming a nurse was typica…
After teaching biology and nutrition for three years, I began my journey back to my original dream: a career in medicine. The most common sense approach to me was to return back to college and start taking the necessary pre-requisites to apply for medi…
“I drank beer with my friends. Almost everyone did.” Alcohol has become constitutional to American culture: “grabbing a drink” after work, happy hour, cheers before meals, on New Year’s, or just because. Our society’s normalization of drinking creates …
I hate repeating myself. It’s an impatient quality, but I wish everyone could just hear me the first time. With a surgical personality, I prefer to convey things in the most efficient way possible, i.e., “Blade!” or “Kelly, please.” So when folks as…
From the beginning of medical school, one of the first things “instructional videos” that we had to watch during orientation was about “social media” and what “not to do.” There began this stigma, and it was frowned upon to use social media if you were…
