The younger you are when you are exposed to opioids, the higher the likelihood of addiction later in life. The prefrontal cortex is not fully formed until the age of 25. This means that alterations in the “feel-good” neurotransmitters, specifically dop…
While researching for my next book, I noticed a peculiar trend: Most news reports about suicide linked victims to mental illness. It is nearly always depression, multiple personality disorder, or more depression. While it is true that personal mental i…
As a young medical student, in my early 20s, I was still too inexperienced to know how a physician was “supposed to” act. But I took the model of stoicism that I learned from my East Indian father and applied it to the medical model. Lectur…
Think studying abroad doesn’t fit with your future plans? Think again. Since the day I applied to university, I had been researching how I could incorporate global learning into my undergraduate degree program, while also thinking about my future goals…
Sixteen months into retirement, the absence of any externally imposed schedule still leaves me partly edgy. Medicare, COBRA, and cell phone bills come due at expected dates. The check goes out the next day, but it could wait another day or a week. Shab…
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 67-year-old man is evaluated for a carotid bruit detected on routine medical examination. He reports no history of previous focal neurologi…
I enjoy a fairly small private practice and a manageable telepsychiatry side job with good support staff. But even the small scale of my outpatient clinical practice doesn’t fully insulate me from the pain of unnecessary practices that I wish would bec…
We are going to need new types of physician leaders to get the change in health care clinicians want. When I observe current physician leaders, I notice the bulk often fall into two distinct groups. On one side, there are the out-of-touch and on the ot…
When I was accepted to medical school, I debated — hard — whether or not to attend. Out of the physicians I shadowed and interviewed, 19 out of 20 advised me not to become a physician. Their dissatisfaction was rampant. Over and over, I was told, “Don’…
A recent article was published in the Atlantic about Americans being the worst patients. Americans are part of a broken and dysfunctional health care system with exorbitant costs, a maelstrom of bureaucratic red tape, and insurance coverage that barely…
