“I suspect that some of the nearly 20 percent of physicians who have quit their jobs during this pandemic needed to feel this relief, too. They needed to feel the relief of having no plan. No ‘if this, then that.’ They needed to just …
Category: primary care
Taking courage to heart and to the heart of medicine
Few individuals are called upon to be heroes like Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy who, in choosing to stay and fight a massive, invading army, faces a real possibility of imprisonment and death. This is true courage. Within the medical professi…
Primary care should be the center of gravity in health care [PODCAST]
“If we want a more effective health care system, it needs to be re-engineered to revolve around the true center of gravity – the patient. We must involve patients early and often in the design of health policy, health technology, and health care …
Bring back CME conferences to exotic locations
It was not too long ago, but it seems like decades when traveling for a CME conference was a routine part of being a physician as looking up articles on UpToDate or giving patients bad news. But like so many other things in life, the reality of CME con…
10 mistakes smart doctors make
When most people think of physicians, they think of the class nerds or the smart kids who got all As and took honors classes and were on the debate and math teams, did the science Olympiad or won the spelling bee. They think of us as brighter and more …
Is there such a thing as too much empathy?
“What does it mean to be neighbors in the trenches?” I began a recent staff meeting at our medical group. We’d just read a passage about the Christmas Truce between the Germans and the British in World War I. The troops found themselv…
Going mobile: an antidote for career regret
This year, the National Resident Matching Program provided matching services to more than 42,000 applicants. A medical student’s choice of specialty is one of the most important decisions they will ever make. But deciding which medical specialty …
2 insight-provoking questions when starting over
“Peace is your home, integrity is the way to it, and everything you long for will meet you there.” – Martha Beck In 2017, the blueprint I had crafted for my life evaporated before my eyes. Up until that point, I had systematically che…
A physician was bullied and fired by the bully
I don’t think I became a whole person until my mid-30s. When you spend the majority of your life in school, training, and building a practice, everything else goes on hold, or autopilot. There are very few things that I made conscious decisions a…
The center of gravity in health care and the role of primary care
I’ve been as guilty as anyone of leaving my patient out on a limb. As a practicing primary care physician, I’ve had patients with diabetes who observe Ramadan, but I had no idea how to support them during their fast. I’ve had transgen…
