I love metaphors. I think they can be so powerful and can convey so much, sometimes with just a few words. One metaphor we use in coaching to describe the coach’s role in a session with their client is that of a swimming pool. The client is in the swim…
“Wrong! The most important part of your job is to make money.” I will never forget those words from an attending in residency – though I did not know it at the time, it was a pivotal moment in my decision to pursue a nontraditional route in medicine. I…
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD. Political divisiveness has always been part of the fabric of America. Even as our Founders laid the groundwork for the United States, they understood the challenges of seeking…
I got married the day after I graduated from medical school to someone I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. Seven years later, we were divorced. Even though a high percentage of marriages end in divorce, there is still a stigma that many…
Patients often comment on my attire other than my white coat, particularly my impractical footwear, until I finally broke down and purchased Danskos to avoid being called out for my truthful impracticality. It is amazing how patients care more about my…
We live in a world today where there is misinformation in abundant supply. What we see and hear in the media one day seems to be reversed the following day. What to believe, who to believe? Our world appears to be in a state of turmoil, a state of cont…
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…
