Janelle had overdosed 32 times. Fentanyl coursed through her veins as she was given naloxone (Narcan) for the 32nd time in the ER, from the police, from a bystander. She could never get off of fentanyl. It had made her feel warm and numbed her from the…
Many health care organizations across the country are taking leaps to address burnout. There are advisory boards formed solely to tackle the issue, access to yoga and meditation, as well as online programs and interactive workshops — just a few example…
So many primary care patients have several multifaceted problems these days, and the more or less unspoken expectation is that we must touch on everything in every visit. I often do the opposite. It’s not that I don’t pack a lot into each visit. I do, …
An excerpt from With Mirth and Laughter: Finding Joy in Medicine After Cancer. I am sitting in the waiting area for the one year follow up appointment with my oncologist, Dr. Anne Blaes. Using the handy phone app, “How Long Ago,” I see it’s been eleven…
The room is half-lit from the sunset. Crowding around the bed, in almost saint-like postures, is the family of our patient who is in her last moments of life. I do my best to console the family, a light touch on the shoulder, and honest stare. Then, th…
When my obstetrician told me I was not going back to my clinic that afternoon due to severe preeclampsia, I was so indoctrinated that my first thought was of the inconvenience to my patients who would need to be rescheduled. Only a few minutes later di…
Health care is big business, with medical practices vying for contracts, hospitals undergoing facelifts in order to cater to patient experiences, and insurance companies making deals with pharmacies. Some of these arrangements are negotiated in the na…
In the current health care system, patient outcomes, and patient satisfaction are increasingly important. With the hospital value-based purchasing program, Medicare adjusts payments to hospitals based on the quality of patient care they provide. Hospit…
In the service industry — which as physicians, we certainly are a part of — a popular saying is that the customer always comes first. The implication is that in order to thrive in an industry, you have to cater to the customers/patients as it is they w…
After spending much of the first 40 years of my life poring over textbooks and medical journals, I decided to start reading literary fiction. At the time, I had no ulterior motive — only a vague sense that I had been missing something important, a meta…
