“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…
Category: primary care
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…
Restoring the value of primary care
In most professions, the pecking order is clear, even when there’s no formal designation. Take pro football. Although nothing in the rulebook grants status or authority to certain players, everyone knows the starting quarterback is the most valua…
We are not defined by what we eat
Throughout history, ancient tribes practiced cannibalism with the intent of bolstering their own courage or energy by consuming their defeated enemies. They wanted to be what they ate: full of courage and vigor. They would even eat their enemies to van…
A photographic exploration of the physician’s inner life
I entered my Manhattan apartment around midnight, roughly an hour after observing a transplant team recover kidneys and a liver from a young patient newly pronounced dead. Still wearing scrubs, I sat down on my bed, and, like a ghostly twin or guardian…
A primary care physician’s gut feelings
To spend an entire college year (two semesters) studying epistemology seemed like a colossal waste of time when I was 19. We had no choice; we had to take it, and I got a pretty good mark, as I recall. It took a half year to find out what it was about,…
How about those doctor hoppers?
Oh no, it’s a doctor hopper. You know who I’m talking about: the patients with twenty previous doctors documented in their chart. The ones who took years to be diagnosed. The ones who still have not been diagnosed, but insist something is w…
