It was a slow day in the emergency department. I was sitting across the bedside from my patient who came in for a left forearm infection checkup. She was a 73-year-old female with a history of diabetes. She was elegant and soft-spoken. Prior to examini…
The dawn of 2018 brought new hopes and new promises for me as I began the third year of my medical school journey. This marked the beginning of a challenging era, one that would test my capabilities to the fullest but also one that was the culmination …
Preparing for medical school demands displaying your passion for both medicine and helping others. Like medical schools, other graduate school programs (think: business or law) require strong grades, test scores, leadership experience, and resumes. But…
Everything is being rated these days. But who is rating the ratings? As a public service, I have been blogging about the shortcomings of various rating systems since 2010. Two recent papers on this topic are worthy of review. In a randomized controlled…
Two years ago, when I was still in residency I happened to be on overnight call the day prior to election day. An associate program director of my residency program asked me if I wouldn’t mind being a doctor of record who evaluates whether I agre…
We’ve all heard about the importance of greater stakeholder collaboration in health care. It’s the premise of current movements aimed at improving the outlook on some of the most costly, chronic conditions. Like most physicians today, I maintain a tigh…
Doctors need to vote. Everyone should vote, of course, but doctors have a unique perspective on some of the most important issues of the day, and it’s time we express that perspective in the one place it matters most: the ballot box. Whether it’s the a…
During my urgent care shifts, I see 20 to 30 people with viral upper respiratory infections. They are all feeling miserable, and they just want to feel better. They want an impressive-sounding diagnosis to justify their suffering to themselves, their s…
It’s a common scenario: a patient shows up to my office lugging a bagful of over-the-counter supplements, defiantly informing me that they “don’t believe in prescription drugs.” In the very next breath, they present a lab slip with a list of bloodwork …
I had a strange thought that both delighted and frightened me in my intern year: I was sitting in my parent’s living room, exhausted. I had been fortunate enough to complete residency near my parents and visited with them pretty regularly. I realized t…
