It was past midnight in the ED, and she was writhing on the bed, palms clutched over her abdomen. I pulled up a stool, notebook, and pen in hand. I was ready to listen to Mrs. Walker’s story. But I also felt a sense of dread rising: From a quick chart …
I sat in a crowded auditorium listening to an attending at a renowned medical institution give a lecture. I didn’t know the answers, and shrouded in imposter syndrome, I avoided eye contact. The visiting medical student from Mexico answered the questio…
Providing primary care to patients with mental illness is a challenging task that requires highly skilled and experienced practitioners comfortable with the full array of biopsychosocial problems with which these patients present. For example, understa…
Indian parents are perfectionists. This is what I had come to understand and believe, even before I had the vocabulary to define it. Perfection was the expectation. Not excellent, not superb, but perfection, and only perfection. After years of reflecti…
I will speak for myself to say that I completely identified with, and fully agree with, all the sentiments shared by Dr. Klingberg in “A breakup with primary care.” Still, from my own life experiences, and a 30-year career in primary care solo practice…
I have been a physician for 26 years. I have been a fierce patient advocate throughout my entire career. It never occurred to me that physicians do not have the same rights of citizenship that the very patients I fight for do. I always thought I lived …
You should like your doctor. Whether or not you like your doctor matters. It matters because if you don’t like your doctor, you’re not going to be honest and forthcoming. Your doctor needs you to be honest and forthcoming to take good car…
Dr. Bernard Lown died February 16, four months shy of his one-hundredth birthday. The Dr. Lown we knew does not emerge from the long list of his many accomplishments, which include the invention of the DC defibrillator and cardioversion, the developmen…
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” This question always confounded me when people would ask me this as a child. What is this “growing up” you speak of? And why do I have to be something? I’m so content with my LEGOs, books, and video games. I w…
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD. There is a tremendous amount of anger raging in our society today. The profound uncertainty posed by COVID-induced cataclysms and the cultural, civil, and political unrest we’v…
