It’s the first day of residency. This morning, the intern was exuberant: the white coat was starched with pride, and the stethoscope brought a new sense of prestige. In last night’s lengthy sign-out, the intern proudly asked relevant questi…
Category: primary care
I never expected death to be so blunt
Starting medical school, I knew I would see people on both the best and worst days of their lives. I would witness births and deaths and come out on the other side as a skilled professional. However, I never expected death to be so blunt. On my first d…
The medical profession is not as pure as it should be
We’ve all heard about the blue wall of silence that describes a belief that law enforcement personnel will refrain from reporting misconduct of their colleagues to the proper authorities. Physicians had similarly been accused of hiding behind a white c…
Genetic testing: Could there be unintended consequences? [PODCAST]
“Both clinical and direct-to-consumer genetic testing have become significantly less costly and more common, providing people with access to a wealth of information about everything from their ethnicity and family lineage to their risk for certai…
An EMR frustration that is still torturing us
I have written, or more accurately ranted, about electronic medical records (EMR) systems throughout this blog. While the systems have clearly improved since their mandatory introduction into the medical universe, they have still not delivered on many …
Caring for other physicians as patients
My favorite patients were the older physicians who came to me as patients. I was humbled, grateful, and awed by each of them. For some reason, I had quite a few physicians as patients, and caring for this group is interesting. It was not until I got ol…
I cured my patient, but what was his diagnosis?
He canceled his follow-up appointment because he was feeling fine. He didn’t see the point in wasting a Saturday to come to my clinic when he had lawns to mow and chores to do. Less than two weeks before that, he was sitting on the exam table in my off…
What do you picture when you think of health care?
What do you picture when you think of health care? How different is that from your vision of health? Is it possible to connect these two mental images? Can they be merged directly or at by way of a bridge? When I envision health, I see images of vitali…
So you want to be a doctor? Here are 10 myths debunked.
I’m glad you’re looking at a career in medicine. I hope you will be happy with your choice forever. To help you out, these are a few myths I wish somebody told me about when I was in your shoes. 1. You’ll be rich. You likely won’…
What will medicine look like in a post-COVID world?
We all have understood by now that life has been changed irrevocably by COVID-19. As physicians, while we navigate the rapidly changing waters of testing, prevention, and acute treatment, we are now becoming increasingly cognizant of the long-term effe…
