Quick, think of someone unrelated to you who has had a major impact on your life. I’d wager the vast majority of us pictured a face or two, and that nearly all (I hope) represented a positive influence. In my thirty-plus-year career in medicine, I’ve b…
I complain about the state of U.S. health care a lot. It’s not driven by quality. It’s expensive. It’s corporatized. It undervalues and commoditizes clinical workers. It’s too controlled by insurance companies. It’s riddle…
Medical specialties, especially within the medical community, are known to be identified as comedic stereotypes of themselves. In addition to (or in conjunction with) being viewed as lazy, anesthesiologists are often stereotyped as being obstructionist…
I didn’t receive an offer to study medicine after graduating. Despite my best efforts, I’d fallen short. But what happened next made me realize the mistake I’d been making. For a while, I thought I wanted to be a scientist. After graduating from high s…
A moment in medical school that left a huge impression on me was when we had chairman’s rounds with the department of medicine’s chair. He was a renowned breast oncologist and researcher and described a bit of his process when interacting …
The recent controversy and backlash surrounding Kamala Harris’s Vogue cover shows that it is still fashionable to diminish powerful women. It also is the latest example of the sad fact that no matter how far we have come, women are still held to a dif…
We all think we know what a bruise looks like. Black and blue, brownish around the edges. But depending on the circumstances, the same bruise can look different from one person to another. To a well-loved child who skinned her knee, a bruise might look…
Like many surgical specialties, the one I was aspiring to is a male-dominated field. As such, all my colleagues were male, and I often felt as though I was trying to be a part of a boy’s club. I shed my intrinsic femininity and instead equipped myself …
I began pursuing a career in medicine with the fervent desire to become a neurosurgeon one day. When someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered neurosurgeon without missing a beat. I chose neurosurgery in high school after falling …
“Today and for the foreseeable future, COVID-19 is a serious threat, virulent and contagious, not only leading to an impressive display of human vulnerability and arrogance, but also demonstrating how innovative and creative humans can be during …
