As proposals to ban surprise medical bills move through Congress and state legislatures with rare bipartisan support, physician groups have emerged as the loudest opponents. Often led by doctors with the veneer of noble concern for patients, physician-…
“The death of a child is the single most traumatic event in medicine. To lose a child is to lose a piece of yourself.” I walked into work yesterday morning, and it only took seconds to appreciate the immense sorrow and sadness that permeate…
I was an RN for more than 40 years and am now retired. As a recent hospital patient, I documented my experiences. This resulted in a letter to nurses everywhere. *** Dear Nurse, Please be kind to me. I am frightened, alone, and in pain. I am way out of…
The use of health care information technology has increased exponentially over the last five years, and as a frontline physician, I have seen this change at close quarters. In most of the hospitals I’ve worked in up and down the East Coast, it’s been i…
If you’ve needed emergency care in the last few years, you probably encountered this situation: Soon after entering the emergency department, you were asked to go to a triage area in the waiting room where a doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician ass…
Today was like no other day. It was our first day together. Me and my “virtual” scribe — an actual person who seems to “virtually” to exist inside of a Jabra speaker on my desk and so subtlety that I forgot to mute a few times w…
I’d been told in my hospital sign-out that Melanie was transgender, but I stumbled on the first day and referred to her as “he” in front of my medical team. “She!” she said immediately. “Oh, man,” I thought to …
Patient confidentiality is an important principle that most physicians still respect. Patients trust physicians not to reveal their private, medical information to others. They expect that physicians will adhere to the Hippocratic ethic followed for th…
I read Samuel Shem’s House of God twice — once in my late college/early med school years and another sometime during my pulmonary/critical care fellowship. The first time, I recall thinking it was drop-dead hilarious. I eagerly shared it with fri…
I remember it was raining outside when I told Ester she had metastatic stomach cancer. She cried, as her son sat silently holding one thin hand in two of his. After a while, she asked, how long did she have to live? I explained it depended on how we…
