Category: primary care

A windy, bumpy road led my family into Costa Rica’s remote Nicoya Peninsula, one of the world’s five so-called Blue Zones. Our arrival in 2021 satisfied a wish I had made while undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer to visit this fascina…

In my personal life and my training as a physician, the burden of “trying to never be wrong” was a mantle I was accustomed to carrying. In retrospect, it was probably a fusion of people-pleasing and perfectionist tendencies. Part of this ch…

In my work with thousands of overstressed physicians and over 175 health care organizations, I have repeatedly learned one lesson: resilience training alone is not sufficient to rein in the epidemic of physician burnout. If you believe, as I do, that p…

In recent years, health care has made significant strides toward gender equality. But are these changes for the better? Let’s use facts to address the misconceptions and finally close the topic of women in medicine. 1. Female doctors make less mo…

Recently, a physician wrote about how access to a patient portal has turned his primary care practice into a reluctant concierge medicine practice, with patients asking questions and expecting quick responses day or night. I could relate. Modern techno…

The ancient adage, “Every picture paints a story,” is a testament to the power of visual imagery in conveying narratives, emotions, and ideas. This phrase encapsulates the ability of images to tell tales without using a single word, to tran…