I often hear the mantra, “You must stay ahead of your pain, or else.” The president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, states a common mistake people make, is waiting too long to take pain medication. By the time you’re in pain, you’re starting …
A man in his fifties is wheeled into the emergency department on a gurney hoping he’ll still be around to cheer from the sidelines at his daughter’s next soccer game. A little girl on the pediatric floor upstairs simply hopes her tummy stops hurting. A…
Three years ago I left my medical school interviews thinking I was not going to be accepted. “You seem like a businesswoman. Why do you want to be a doctor?” I was asked. I had spent my undergraduate years devoted to building an online food blog with o…
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects movement, resulting most notably in tremor, slow movement, stiffness and balance issues. While Parkinson’s patients benefit from medicine that can alleviate some of these…
Doctors by our nature do not handle idleness well. We value our vacations, of course. I never sought out a study to see if doctors vacationed differently than others. Some probably hang out someplace warm, others seek out the best eats of the place the…
With burnout on the rise, many physicians are choosing to leave clinical medicine for alternative careers. Other physicians are wondering if it’s worth it to stay in a workforce that does not pull for the well being of their front line workers. Gone ar…
Some children present to me with complex problems or multiple problems that fail to resolve after the typical interventions. I recall a child with severe abdominal pain. He had tried numerous medicines and had had scopes and studies galore. It had reac…
I recently read an article — “California Doctors Alarmed As State Links Their Opioid Prescriptions to Deaths” — that infuriates and frightens me I’m furious that doctors are being persecuted for opioid prescriptions writte…
My late father often repeated the adage, “Any man who serves as his own lawyer has a fool for a client.” We physicians may not represent ourselves in court, but we often try to treat ourselves or neglect our own medical care — and end up with a fool fo…
Last month on February 3, 2019, we celebrated National Women Physician’s Day (NWPD). Created in 2016 by the Physician Mom Group (PMG) in collaboration with Physicians Working Together (PWT) and Medelita, NWPD honors the first female physician in the U….
