What I’m about to tell you is based on good insider information. But I also disclose that this is an amalgamation of a few reports of teledoc companies to me and their crony insurance companies, not a thorough analysis of the entire industry. I just as…
I guess I should take it as a compliment when patients come to see me after visiting a specialist and ask me a bunch of difficult specialty-related questions. “Did you ask the specialist that?” I typically ask, and the answer will be a plain “no.” I’ve…
I just had a conversation with a physician and faculty member at my school. He started the conversation like this: “It’s alright if you disagree with me, and I can disagree with you too. Good academic discourse should allow people to disagree with each…
How often do we face a physical or mental feat that we’ve always wanted to do, but never seemed to be able to complete successfully? I had a physical feat that I wanted to do my entire life, and this year, at age 56, I finally succeeded. I can still pi…
A wonderful senior resident helped me understand the goal of rounding. Rounds should focus primarily on understanding the key problems and the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to those problems. She suggested that some rounds spend too much time…
This article is sponsored by Careers by KevinMD.com. What makes any particular job a “bad” one? Maybe the pay is too low. Perhaps the hours don’t work with your other commitments. It could be the commute is too long, or the opportunity for …
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. An 82-year-old woman is seen for follow-up evaluation of Alzheimer disease. Since her last visit 12 weeks ago, she has been taking rivastigmi…
In 2006 Dr. Tom Bodenheimer wrote an article that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled, “Primary Care – Will It Survive?” Dr. Bodenheimer spoke with great concern about patients’ growing unhappiness with their primary care phys…
Ask any physician what quality is, and you’ll get many different answers. You will hear answers such as “finding a cause for their pain,” “ruling out a life-threatening condition,” “partnering with patients to improve their health” or “offering the mos…
My puppy looked sick. Not just any sick but “get an attending, two large bore IVs, start fluids, get her on a monitor, move her to the resuscitation bay” sick. And I was scared. “You have to take her to the vet!” I pleaded with my husband as I sprinted…
