Stacks of flyers ranging from local free dinners to legal services collecting in a box or filing cabinet are familiar scenes in student-run clinics (SRCs). To anyone who has worked in social services, maintaining organization and keeping up-to-date res…
I recently read a story that struck close to home for me, and I suspect for nearly all of you in your medical careers at one time or another. It was a story of a surgeon called in urgently to the ED for a seriously injured young boy. The surgeon arrive…
Here’s a controversial phrase for a doctor to say that needs to be normalized: “I am tired.” As a physician, working oneself to exhaustion for our patients is often seen as a sign of strength and even heroic. As a rare Black male in medicine in the mi…
I once attended a business coaching workshop for health care professionals. For one of the exercises, we had to draw our “ideal patient.” The instructor told us to be as specific as we could. We were encouraged to set up a full name profile, age, gende…
The corporatization of medicine has destroyed primary care as a specialty. The primary care physician is supposed to be your go-to doctor, your advocate, the coordinator of your health care. Now that corporations buy out hospitals and private practices…
“I am overwhelmed right now. I know I am not alone. I hear it in the voices of my friends, family, colleagues, patients. We are all feeling it. I am overwhelmed by this virus. There is so much to learn, so much to teach. Every day the information…
This is not what I signed up for. Have you ever said this when you are rushing home 1.5 hours after the last patient left and you still haven’t finished all your charting? You grab a handful of forms to take home with you with the hopeful expectation t…
“What has become of medicine today? What has become of the sacred patient-physician relationship? What has become of medical offices- aren’t they supposed to be healing places? Who goes to a medical clinic (no matter how Big the Name) to be insul…
Even if you have a great health insurance plan, you may be faced with large unexpected medical bills that can significantly impact your finances and may lead to medical debt. High deductible plans, the rising cost of care, and high-cost treatments for …
“We have met the enemy in medical education, and he is us!” My paraphrase of the “philosophy of Pogo” is pertinent to today’s crop of graduating medical students. We have inserted them into the most toxic environment for learning medicine, ever. Dr. Mi…
