This article is sponsored by Careers by KevinMD.com powered by Health eCareers. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants are both advanced-practice providers with considerable autonomy, but they’re not interchangeable. Each brings something slightly different to the table, and if your practice is considering hiring an advanced-level practitioner, it’s important to understand the differences so you can hire appropriately […]
This past week was one of those weeks looming ahead of me that I was already dreading as I entered into it. I was to be working through another holiday and following a string of nights, and I would have a quick turnaround into a mid-shift. As a nocturnist by choice, I rarely work mornings […]
“Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.” –Robert Gary Lee One of the recurring expressions I heard throughout training, from preceptors and attendings to doctors ignoring a lowly medical student/resident eating lunch in the doctor’s lounge, was: “I’m living the dream.” It didn’t take long for me to realize that it was a code meaning […]
As a teaching clinician in an internal medicine residency program, it is safe to say that September is one of the more exciting and busier times of the academic year. Walking through the hallways of our department, we encounter bright-eyed fourth-year medical students scurrying about in a frenzy as they make some big decisions about […]
I saw two patients with a chief complaint of bubbles in their urine this month. One middle-aged woman had eaten some wild mushrooms she was pretty sure she had identified correctly, but once her urine turned bubbly a few days later, she came in to make sure her kidneys were OK. Even though she was […]
I practiced general internal medicine from June 1979 until November 2003. Immediately after training, I became an employed physician of an older internist covering my employer’s patients and building my practice for two years before embarking on my own. I saw 20 or more patients per day in addition to providing hospital care and visiting […]
While walking through the duty-free at Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC, I happened upon the price tag of an imported French purse. Looking around, I wondered how many travelers could afford a $2,000 handbag.At the gate, I found a seat and logged on to the internet, where I happened upon a story about the […]
I have talked in the past about coping with financial freedom. Once we reach the mountaintop, we undergo a number of emotional changes. It is, however, a mistake to believe that the transformation only begins once we have attained our goal. In my humble opinion, there are five stages of financial independence. These stages begin with […]
To lighten the mood, when patients ask me where I went to medical school, I sometimes joke that I got my medical degree online. This usually invites laughter because it is preposterous that medicine could be taught virtually. After all, medicine is a noble professional with time-honored traditions of passing down experiential information and hands-on […]
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” – John Dewey I stood there in awe as I watched the trauma team leap into action as the patient was rolled into the trauma bay. “Crush injury,” they said. Vitals were terribly unstable, and the patient was decompensating quickly. The corner of the room […]
