“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” – Albert Einstein “Mr. Thomas, are you OK?…
Category: primary care
Doctors: Never pass judgment on the human being in front of you needing help
Oh, how we all learn and change with our experiences. It’s one of the greatest things in life that most of us (hopefully) are not the same person now that we were a few years ago. Looking back to when I first become a physician at the age of 22 (yes, t…
Gender inequities and being a physician-mom [PODCAST]
“As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds day by day at an exponential rate, we as doctors have been called to duty in unprecedented ways. Speak with any physician in the last few weeks, and you will be hard-pressed to find one who didn’t feel an intrins…
Doctors are fleeing the medical field. Here’s why.
The first day I started work as an attending physician in primary care medicine, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. This was not the heroic, selfless, service-oriented job or the romantic life “as seen on TV” I had imagined. Riddled with…
Delivering health care at a retail clinic isn’t something to be proud of
When I describe it, many of you will instantly recall the Norman Rockwell painting of a doctor holding a stethoscope to the chest of a little girl’s doll. Historian Neil Harris described that iconic image, published in a 1929 edition of the Saturday Ev…
Choice is a charged word in medicine
Choice is always available to us. Choice is a charged word – fueling political debates and challenging concepts of freedom. Many would argue that there are unavoidable obligations, legal and cultural limitations that revoke choice, but at the core of h…
There is endless profit potential to treat chronic diseases
I have noticed several articles describing how antibiotic development has bankrupted some pharmaceutical companies because there isn’t enough potential profit in a ten-day course to treat multi-resistant superbug infections. Chronic disease treatments,…
4 pitfalls that run through the minds and daily realities of primary care doctors
I looked at a free book chapter from Harvard Businesses Review today and saw a striking graph illustrating what we’re up against in primary care today, and I remembered a post I wrote eight years ago about burnout skills. Some things we do, some challe…
Doctors shouldn’t feel ashamed for wanting to protect themselves or their family [PODCAST]
“Although I personally hope to continue to be at or near the frontlines, I understand those that are in a compromised position, and they shouldn’t feel ashamed for wanting to protect themselves or their family. There is no portion of the Hippocra…
The case for compassionate communication
A majority of physicians see between 11 and 20 patients per day, and among all practices, the majority of doctors spend between 17 and 24 minutes with each patient. Assuming a five-day workweek, this translates to more than 900 patient interactions per…
