The COVID-19 pandemic helped bring out people’s true colors. After two years of the unrelenting pressures of the pandemic, people’s true colors came out, and I will have a frank about this truth. As physicians, we often put our patient̵…
Category: primary care
Changing how we think about difficult patients
An excerpt from Changing How We Think About Difficult Patients: A Guide for Physicians and Healthcare Professionals. After I finished my residency in EM and started working as an attending physician, I realized I had a problem. I believe a lot of you h…
A shout out to small hospitals [PODCAST]
“I’m a small-time doc in a small town, and I work at a small hospital in the Midwest, and I’m proud of it. The huge university hospitals (like Cleveland Clinic) get all the glory (especially in society and in the press), but small hospitals like …
Metric fever will decimate our primary care workforce
Primary care doctors have had enough. I’m sick of it as a family physician, and I know you are too. In our never-ending battle with insurance companies and CMS bureaucrats over how to do our job, the new turf is value-based care (VBC), and the la…
Danielle Ofri, MD on sharing stories and the emotional epidemiology of disease [PODCAST]
This episode is sponsored by Athelas, the number one provider of remote patient monitoring. “This last mile of the COVID pandemic—Omicron or not—is a painstaking one-on-one endeavor. As is most of primary care. Sadly, we now have to deal with pol…
Failing the boards doesn’t make you a bad doctor
As a small town-trained osteopathic hospitalist, I have seen that some people may mistakenly believe that boards scores are important. But in reality, bedside manner is a lot more important. I’ve seen cases where nurse practitioners and physician assis…
A love letter from your doctor
You know who you are. I’m writing to tell you no matter how wrenching our time was together, or messy, or scary, or short were the hours, I love you. I cherish you. And no matter how hard I tried, it was you who gave more. Because you let me in when I …
Never underestimate the self-flagellation of the physician [PODCAST]
This episode is sponsored by Athelas, the number one provider of remote patient monitoring. “Patients die. This is a tragic truism in the world of medicine. Usually, the patients who die are elderly. Patients die from diabetes and kidney disease,…
You are a servant with a servant heart
As I was preparing for my next medical mission, I began to think about the word “minister.” Obviously from a religious standpoint, it has certain connotations, one of which is “to serve”. When you are ministering to someone̵…
The business of medicine creates a culture where doctors aren’t allowed to rest
When I was in the fourth grade, I left school early one day unbeknownst to anyone. I misread my watch when the teacher was switching subjects, and she stepped out of the room for a minute. I thought it was 12:05 — time for lunch. I gathered my ba…
