Category: primary care

The value of intergenerational relationships

With the rapid growth of modern medicine and awareness in lifestyle and environmental influences, individuals can live longer and healthier lives. Approximately 15.2 percent of the U.S. population consists of individuals 65 years and older. To make the…

Physicians: Take back the title you have earned through your training

“Customer #4, please step up to the counter. How may I help you today?”  As a patient, have you ever felt that it seemed you were waiting in line at the deli department, listening for your number to be called?  Sorry to say, the practice of…

Proponents of independent non-physician practice make a dangerous assumption

An excerpt from Patients at Risk: The Rise of the Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant in Healthcare. On a sunny Tuesday in March 2015, the steps of Capitol Hill were draped in white as nurse practitioners from across the United States descended …

You have options when it comes to board certification

It’s good to have options, isn’t it? So why isn’t there an option when it comes to taking your boards? In other words, can’t residents have a say with which board to become certified with once they’re done with their residency? Well, there’s good news …

Fairness in medical publishing: Reforming the peer review process

In the middle of a busy week of balancing clinical, research, educational, administrative, and parental responsibilities, I receive an email request from a prominent journal to review a manuscript. If I agree, I will spend a couple of hours reading the…

Let us not forget that patients were young once and have stories we need to hear

He reminded me of a pit bull, this sometimes cantankerous but always fascinating World War II veteran. We first met in 1992, shortly after I arrived in Burlington following my years in the Army. Chronologically he was in his early 70s, but physiologica…

An appreciation for the sacred spaces at work

As a healer who has been doing my work in the dark, blind in a sense, today was a big day. The visit was scheduled, not as a phone visit but as my first Zoom visit since the pandemic began 150 days ago. Usually, I see about 30 patients in-person a week…

To better take care of patients, we need to take care of ourselves [PODCAST]

“I wonder what keeps us physicians going? What makes us show up to work every day? Even though it might sound clichéd, for most of us, it’s the love for medicine; it’s the love to be there and still be able to make a difference. And maybe money t…

A DO’s take on the FIGS faux pas

Most health care providers are aware of the FIGS scrubs advertisement that depicted a female physician with a DO badge holding a Medical Terminology for Dummies book upside down.  In one fell swoop, FIGS enraged the entire medical community causing bac…

Telehealth is the future but it is obscured by a dismal present [PODCAST]

“Will the unfavorable regulatory environment permit telehealth to flourish? Perforce we’re beginning to see a relaxation of restrictions that have hitherto obstructed progress.  Recently, federal officials approved interstate licensing, thereby p…