Primary care is a field that is both highly rewarding and highly challenging. Those who enter into it quickly find that they are rewarded with the satisfaction of knowing they are playing a vital role in the lives of their patients. However, they also …
Misinformation and public distrust of health care professionals are a daily hazard affecting the health of millions of people. So what can health care professionals do about it? A new study shows 37% of millennials, or those ages 25 to 34 years old, do…
Our profession often sends the message that we are invincible heroes. Here’s my vulnerable and honest admission: I lapped that up. There was something so seductive about denying pesky human requirements, like sleep, regular exercise, and time to decomp…
“A few months ago, I embarked on an ethnographic study to understand what health care professionals saw as the psychosocial needs of pediatric patients. This involved conversations with several doctors in Pakistan, who had volunteered to share th…
The 2022 Medscape poll on physician burnout confirms what has been painfully obvious to doctors on the frontlines of COVID-19: Their burnout is intensifying. According to the survey of 13,000 doctors, the nation’s most burned-out physicians are t…
My residency baby just turned eighteen. Obviously, he isn’t really a baby anymore. He is six foot four and going to college, but somehow, I still think of him as that little baby. Maybe I’m just relieved that “we” both made it to eighteen. By “we,” I m…
Modern medicine, a system originally designed to fix acute health care problems, now creates more chronic health care problems than helping to solve them. I see the dangers of over-testing and over-prescribing taking place each day in my day-to-day ped…
“One initiative that more administrators should support is global medical outreach. The ability to practice pure medicine, like the neighborhood doctor from long ago, renews a love for the vocation that physicians sought when they first entered m…
Tuesday, at the podium in a small auditorium, I realized that my time was finally up. Even as an educator/administrator (non-clinical) physician, I was done. Preparing to give a canned talk — a requirement of my current career strategy — fa…
Visiting the doctor’s office can be a source of anxiety for millions of patients, who often fear unknown costs, an unexpected diagnosis, or exposure risk to diseases, like COVID-19. On the other side of the equation, business stakeholders of a communit…
