Sometimes I wonder if I am wired differently from other doctors, in terms of what I remember on my own and what I need some help with. The other day I got a “medical call” that simply said, “Mr. Brown called to report his blood pressure is 120/80.” With more than fifty calls in my […]
Earlier this year, I wrote a piece about friends and colleagues of mine who have left HIV clinical practice. Something about it touched a nerve. Admittedly, it was kind of a downer — but it might have been slightly misinterpreted. A lot of the problems my friends cited could have easily applied to almost any area of […]
Earlier this year, I wrote a piece about friends and colleagues of mine who have left HIV clinical practice. Something about it touched a nerve. Admittedly, it was kind of a downer — but it might have been slightly misinterpreted. A lot of the problems my friends cited could have easily applied to almost any area of […]
Vanguard, Fidelity, and Schwab have been engaging in a fierce competition to claim the mantle as the leading provider of low-cost index funds. As a result, each has aggressively lowered their fees for their index fund offerings over the past few years and advertised their low-cost offerings to investors. After the latest round of fee […]
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 30-year-old woman is evaluated in follow-up after being recently diagnosed with HIV infection. She is asymptomatic. Medical history is unremarkable, and she takes no medications; she has not yet started antiretroviral therapy. She received all scheduled childhood immunizations. On physical […]
Writing in Annals of Family Medicine a few years ago, Chicago obstetrician Benjamin P. Brown vividly described his mentor’s interaction with a patient who had just emigrated from Mexico and had no family support. “When he asked earnestly how she was doing, her hard-won defenses seemed to crumple, and all of a sudden she was […]
The past decade has seen an enormous upheaval in the practice of medicine. The private independent medical practice is in danger of extinction. Management overhead and red tape has skyrocketed due to government regulations and private insurance and pharmaceutical benefit rules. Added to that are multiple electronic medical records that need to be implemented, vary […]
“I love what I do. I hate what I have to do.” It’s a quote that doctors attribute to their profession behind closed doors. As patients, we are so overwhelmed with our own problems. We fail to notice that our doctor may be battling her own problems with a complicated system. But what do we […]
What makes a good doctor or, for that matter, a great one? Most patients want physicians who are excellent clinicians and diagnosticians. But we also want doctors who are caring, empathetic and maybe even telepathic — doctors who seem to know intuitively what we need without any awkward discussion of sensitive issues. After all, patients […]
If money is the root of all evil, what does that make debt? Evil’s ugly big brother. A report by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) revealed that over 86 percent of medical graduates carry an educational debt principal of over $160,000, with a significant number of graduates reporting debt totaling over $350,000. In […]
