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…
November 2017. I was on my pediatrics rotation at a local community clinic. My attending asked me if I could see Johnathan (identifying information and event details altered to protect confidentiality), an eight-year-old boy who has been increasingly f…
America in 2018: 307 mass shootings in 311 days. Recently, a veteran with presumed PTSD shot up Borderline Bar & Grill. His Facebook declaration: I hope people call me insane… (laughing emojis).. wouldn’t that just be a big ball of irony? Yeah.. I’…
“If only there was just one more creative way to increase my child’s sugar intake,” said no parent ever. As a pediatric cardiologist, I spend much of my day counseling parents of children with obesity, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. I tell them to i…
As an internist, I strived to give patients hope by prescribing therapies that increased their chance — their hope — of the best outcome and by encouraging them with hopeful words. My own hope was to care for patients until I was old. Just weeks after …
Our country is at risk of losing an iconic institution that has played a pivotal role in the history of medical education. A school, which has produced some of the boldest pioneers in medicine, could lose accreditation upon the opening of a new hospita…
I use social media. Specifically, I use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. In the beginning, I did so for utilitarian purposes. As a columnist and aspiring writer of books, these were (and indeed are) useful marketing tools. I have, in the past, carri…
The general consensus among physicians who have a solid grasp on their finances is that they are realistic about their earnings and expenses. Ins and outs. Just like in nephrology, except a net positive in your finances is considered a win. One would …
