I sometimes get messages from people who have lost physician colleagues and loved ones to suicide. It’s the specifics of these stories that wound me: a note left for an unexpected person; an insignificant fight at sign-out that in retrospect is full of meaning; the white coat that a woman wore when she jumped to […]
“Sorry, I’m running late … sorry, to keep you waiting.” How many times a day do I say that? Sometimes it is every time I walk into a patient’s room as if it is a normal greeting. Sometimes patients respond with: “Oh, you aren’t late” or “I haven’t been waiting long.” I can be so […]
Medicaid — the program that provides funding for adults, seniors (along with Medicare), children and people who are blind or disabled who can’t pay for their own health care — is expensive. It is painfully expensive. The program, along with CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program), marketplace subsidies and Medicare is responsible for 25 percent […]
Young, aspiring doctors are the Iron Youth of this generation. In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, young German soldiers are called the Iron Youth as part of a campaign to generate enthusiasm for fighting in the war; these soldiers soon realize the true horrors of war and its lasting impact on […]
On May 15, President Trump attempted to kill not just two, but three birds with one tweet, simultaneously denouncing the Media and the Mueller investigation, and crowing about his approval ratings. “Can you believe that with all of the made up, unsourced stories I get from the Fake News Media, together with the $10,000,000 Russian […]
People with liver failure and cirrhosis die every year because there are not enough livers available. Who should receive the treasured life-saving organ? There is an organ allocation system in place, which has evolved over time, which ranks patients who need liver transplants. Without such a system, there would be confusion and chaos. How can […]
Everybody gets nervous at the doctor’s office. Physicians ask all sorts of personal questions about what people eat, how much they drink, and how things are at home. Even questions that would seem completely harmless in another context — such as how work is going, or what hobbies a person enjoys — seem surrounded by […]
On June 10, 1963, the Equal Pay Act was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy, amending the previous Fair Labor Standards Act. Under this law, pay disparities between men and women were clearly prohibited. More than fifty-five years later, women are still fighting to be paid the same as men holding the same […]
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 68-year-old man is evaluated at a follow-up appointment. He has a 7-year history of heart failure secondary to ischemic cardiomyopathy. Over the past 6 months, he has had three hospitalizations for exacerbations of his heart failure. He currently has exertional […]
I lost a friend this month. She was a surgeon; she was one of us. We lost her. So did her patients. All the ones she helped. The ones she saved. So did her hospital, her nurses, her techs. So did her family. All the love, coming to a screeching halt. Continue reading … Your […]
