“I wish this were not the case, but I am concerned that your disease is getting worse, and your time may be very short.” “I know you are angry and upset at how you were treated — I will do my best to make sure that does not happen again.” “I am s…
Category: primary care
System failure: We need a reboot to better handle intersectionality
In medical school, physicians learn how to diagnose and treat medical conditions. We learn about all the different presentations and revel in catching a complex or rare diagnosis. In essence, we learn to categorize disorders based on a cluster of sympt…
Doctor, how do you define your days?
During a particularly long stretch of being on call, of spending my days caring for patients, documenting in the EMR, and sleeping – I was spent. I felt like a horrible doctor. The blooper reel of my medical misadventures ran through my mind – th…
Working as a digital nomad physician practicing telemedicine while travelling the world
This is not the career path I set out to practice when I left medical school; in fact, it’s a career path that didn’t even exist. But after making a number of lifestyle choices this is where I find myself today. I am sitting writing this ar…
Welcome to prior-authorization hell
“What diagnosis do you want to use for those ear drops you sent on Mr. Johnson,” Jenn texted me. “ICD-L21.8 for seborrheic dermatitis?” Sigh. Welcome to prior-authorization hell. These are generic ear drops I ordered for presumed fungal infection of th…
Healer: Heal thyself; forgive thyself
It is a special group, a mish-mash of medical professionals all with a common purpose: Honing the ability to practice medicine in a more empathetic and compassionate manner, which will benefit both the patient and the professional alike. All meet to sh…
If we don’t support doctors, they will go away
Family medicine — something I devoted my life to and believe in — is being undermined by local doctors and hospital administrators. And I would move, but it seems to be a national trend as well. It’s more cost-effective to hire NPs and turn a bli…
I wanted to care for people, so I became a direct primary care doctor
For whatever reason, being 35,000 feet in the air makes me reflective. During one flight, I had a flurry of thoughts, and the reason I decided to get into this whole mess of direct primary care spilled out of me. I want to share it here because if you …
Why I love caring for geriatric patients
As I enter the exam room, I hear, “Don’t get old honey!” As a physician caring for a large population of geriatric patients in Florida, I hear this approximately five times a day. To this statement, I always reply, “There’s no alternative, though!” I …
A physician’s experience with local mission work
In December of 2011, I made a career move that changed my life. My life as a surgeon was getting stale. Doing the same old thing for two decades was getting old, and I was looking for something to breathe new life into my surgical practice. I decided t…
