“I’m sad you are leaving! But I’m sure you had your loans forgiven by coming here! So I am happy for you!” A colleague said this upon learning I was leaving to pursue a fellowship. Her comment stung. As a non-citizen with privat…
Category: primary care
What do doctors do when they get sick?
Doctors don’t get sick. Right? We’re certainly not supposed to. Throughout our training, the consequences of illness are dire—if you have to miss a day, someone else, someone you know well and care about, will have to fill in. They will pro…
What do doctors do when they get sick?
Doctors don’t get sick. Right? We’re certainly not supposed to. Throughout our training, the consequences of illness are dire—if you have to miss a day, someone else, someone you know well and care about, will have to fill in. They will pro…
Doctors as organizational stewards
COVID-19 melted down the world at a very inopportune time in history. Just as medicine was getting a handle on previously intractable conditions, from sophisticated diabetes management to less invasive surgical procedures, a new threat that devastates …
Warehouses for the elderly?
Bringing in the mail recently, I was pleased to see a thick 5-by-7-inch booklet among the catalogs and bills. The anticipation of reading a few Reader’s Digest short stories and “Humor in Uniform” made the evening seem pleasurable. But when I opened th…
Burnout is a spiritual crisis
On my second year-long round of burnout, I lay in bed at night as I festered in my negativity, thinking to myself, “What am I good at, what do I like to do, what am I supposed to be doing?” Little did I realize this was a spiritual crisis. …
To scribe or not to scribe? That is the question.
By this title, I mean whether it is a good idea or not to hire a scribe to enter data into the electronic medical record (EMR) system. I favor having a scribe. I came of age with paper charts, and I found the transition to EMR tricky and time-consuming…
A call to dismantle structural heteronormative care
“That is a very heteronormative lens.” These words were uttered to me by a 23-year-old female patient as I explained i-PLEDGE and the steps she must complete to take oral isotretinoin. The visit started as fairly routine. A young female pre…
A physician mom’s take on telemedicine
I know most of us have started adapting to the new way of life in our practice. However, some of us are still skeptical. I’m hoping to reach out to the skeptical ones among us. The reason I say that is I was in your shoes as I started my career i…
Practicing medicine as a Deaf physician is an uphill battle [PODCAST]
“No one anticipated how the pandemic would impact their Deaf colleagues’ work environment and career opportunities. Yet, 15% of adults report some form of hearing difficulty. This number increases dramatically with advancing age, with 50% of thos…
