“My parents abused me as a child. I went no contact with them over ten years ago, but now my dad is in the hospital with a serious diagnosis and the discharge planner keeps asking me to be involved. I don’t want to. What are my rights?̶…
Category: primary care
Why taking risks is worth it: a doctor’s journey from uncertainty to opportunity
There were no smartphones when I was a medical resident in the late 80s in Puerto Rico. During my last year, while waiting for a lecturer to arrive, I grabbed a medical journal from the conference room table to kill some time. I flipped through the pag…
The art of the physical exam: the importance of returning to the basics
“Make thorough inspection.” – Sir William Osler, MD. The art of the physical exam is precisely that: an art that must be practiced often, for years on end, and the one that a physician may become a great achiever or skilled but never …
How receiving medical practice coaching can multiply your income
Not only does medical practice coaching teach you how to open your mind to who you really are, but it also allows you to bypass the dreaded $20,000 to $50,000 MBA business education that your medical school refused to teach you about. When you recogniz…
Primary care colonialism: the impact of profit-driven health care on communities
An excerpt from On Medicine as Colonialism. For about seventeen years, from 1991 until 2008, I lived in little Scituate, Rhode Island, where I practiced family medicine, and for about eleven of those seventeen years, I practiced out of the basement of …
Feeling valued by my boss: How a simple tumbler made my day
I arrived at my desk after a holiday hiatus with renewed energy to tackle the day. It sat there, unassuming, on my desk with a note. My heart was giddy, knowing my tea pastime would level up. Opening the letter, I realized it was from my boss. My boss …
Why sharing your complete medical history with your clinicians is important
It’s your first visit to a cardiologist because you’ve had occasional episodes of an irregular heartbeat. As you fill out your pre-appointment paperwork, you carefully list the symptoms you’re experiencing and the treatments your prim…
The empathy gap: How a lack of understanding is fueling poor outcomes and health disparities
I recently watched The Color of Care, a documentary highlighting the disparate and inequitable care received by Black and brown individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the movie, Executive Producer Oprah Winfrey opined that one of the primary …
Why primary care physicians should be the quarterbacks in patient care
“There are, in truth, no specialties in medicine, since to know fully many of the most important diseases, one must be familiar with their manifestation in many organs.” – Sir William Osler, MD. I agree with this statement to an exten…
Health care leadership: Making medicine a team sport
Americans give lip service to the importance of teamwork. But most often, we credit success to individuals. Perhaps nowhere is this “MVP mindset” more apparent than in medicine. The brilliant lone physician — gallantly battling to save a pa…
