Every day, in my job as an anesthesiologist, I am called upon to manage conflict. Sometimes, it’s between two members of my team, sometimes it’s between coworkers, and many times it is a conflict I may have with my own co-worker or peer. Wh…
Category: surgery
Skydiving and surgery: How one doctor translates high-stress training to saving lives
An excerpt from The Heart of Fear: A Surgeon’s Collection of Stories on Adversity, Passion and Perseverance. Each step is calculated. Each step is deliberate. Each step is taken with the goal of saving a life. Everyone needs a hobby, but skydivin…
Beyond textbooks: the importance of empathy in medicine
An excerpt from All Bleeding Stops. Megan continues to take his blood pressure every few minutes. With growing tenderness Denis watches her fidgeting with the IV, biting her lip, eyes flitting from one machine to the next, desperately seeking the reass…
The paradox of health IT: Improving care, impeding communication
Advancements in health IT have created ease and efficiency in delivering health care that has never been seen before. Electronic ordering and prescribing have reduced medication errors from misinterpreting handwritten information. The interoperable tra…
Certified, but denied: the impact of board certification on patient care [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! In this episode, we’re joined by Emmanuel K. Konstantakos, an orthopedic surgeon, and Jeff Morris, an attorney and CEO of the American Board of Physician Specialties. They discuss the…
Earning trust in anesthesia: How recognizing limitations can improve patient safety
Working with and supervising residents takes a certain degree of trust. Empowering residents with trust can be a difficult proposition for educators. There’s a moment early in the career and education of an anesthesia resident where they earn the…
Revolutionizing vascular surgery: How embracing endovascular techniques saved the specialty
An excerpt from The Medical Jungle: A Pioneering Surgeon’s Battle to Revolutionize Vascular Care and Challenge the Medical Mafia. Still no matter what anyone said, I knew in my heart that endovascular grafts and endovascular aneurysm repair were …
Beyond the physical: How hand injuries affect identity and expression [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! In this episode, we’re joined by Peter T. Hetzler, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, to discuss the importance of the hand in human identity and expression. In the U.S. private se…
Navigating the gray area: a doctor’s perspective on treating a colleague
“Musta been the ham sandwich,” he said as he leaned onto the operating table and belched a couple of times. We were halfway through an operation, and Doug, my partner, didn’t look all that good. I’d been in practice for all of a…
The hidden costs of teaching surgery: an academic surgeon’s perspective
I ran across one of those bordering-on-sappy Facebook posts that always pull me in, asking people to describe their job poorly and make it comically accurate. The photographer admitted she would flash clients, shoot someone, and then frame someone else…
