As a goal-oriented individual, I pack my days with appointments, deadlines, and to-do lists. Unfortunately, the time I spend getting from one task to the next gets lost in my focus on end results -- a common blindness of Westerners who measure success or achievement by results and not by how one “plays the game.” As parents, we teach our children it’s not whether you win or lose, but how ...
Read more...
Imposter syndrome (n.): Term coined in 1970 by psychologists and researchers to informally describe people who are unable to internalize their accomplishments despite external evidence of their competence.
When I was in medical school, I remember walking outside the library and trying not to glance inside to see how many of my classmates appeared to be meticulously studying for final exams. I remember trying to ignore their off-hand, and occasionally self-congratulating, ...
Read more...
Last week I, like many around me, came down with a horrible cold. My husband got sick the week before and was in bed all weekend sleeping and trying to recover, and lo and behold, come Monday, I started having the same symptoms.
I knew the approximate course of the cold since I’m a doctor, and I saw my husband go through it, but I thought I could be strong and push through. I continued ...
Read more...
You see your gastroenterologist with long-standing stomach pain. You have undergone a reasonable evaluation and all the endoscopic bodily invasions, and imaging studies of your abdomen have been normal. Repeated lab work provides no clue explaining your distress. You have been twice to the emergency room and were sent home with prescriptions that didn’t work. You are frustrated and so is your gastro guy. You are convinced that there is ...
Read more...
We, as a society, can’t ignore these numbers: over 47,000 human lives lost prematurely in one year from drug overdoses, a 7 percent spike over the previous year, with opioid painkillers and heroin driving much of this tragic surge. If this trend isn’t disturbing enough, four out of five new heroin abusers began their habit by abusing painkillers.
These numbers have faces. Caring for patients who abuse and overdose ...
Read more...
Mnemonics can be incredibly cool. When I was in medical school, there was just too much stuff to remember and memory aids were so very helpful. Most specifically I refer to the vile and inappropriate one that helped me remember the cranial nerves which I remember to this day and will not share in print.
In ancient times orators used memory palaces to memorize long speeches or poems, associating words with ...
Read more...
Dear American Board of Pediatrics:
On December 17 2015, at 3:01 in the middle of my busy day seeing patients, I voluntarily gave up my American Board of Pediatrics certification. I thought I should write this letter, hopefully preempting any more threatening emails warning me that I must pay up or lose my certification. This was not mere oversight on my part. This was purposeful.
The reason I am no longer ABP ...
Read more...
Within the last several weeks, I’ve had two plumbing issues that have caused me to reflect on the honorability of various professions and the way in which people go about earning an honest day’s crust.
Let me take you back to the beginning of the story. I was actually working nights a couple of months ago when I noticed, just before I was about to leave for the hospital, that my ...
Read more...
Requesting a second opinion can be a touchy subject for a patient. I’d like to think that when I was in practice, I was never offended when a patient’s family requested a second opinion, but that probably doesn’t universally reflect my response in every circumstance. But I am confident in saying that as often as not, I would be the one suggesting that we get another pair of eyes to ...
Read more...
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
Fire Prevention Week. National Volunteer Week. Save Your Vision Week. tTe list goes on! These observances or “awareness weeks” aim to advocate important messages both locally and nationally to the media and public. You may wonder about the effectiveness of an overload of awareness weeks, ...
Read more...
“Oh God!” she groaned, looking upward with tears flooding her cheeks, which were stretched into the shape of agony. Her chest heaved uncontrollably with grief.
“I am so very sorry,” I whispered again while leaning in and stroking her hand.
This is what death notification often looks like and feels like. We doctors should be masters of delivering some of the worst news that could ever be uttered; the worst news that ...
Read more...
If you have a life where you never, ever say yes when you mean no, then you can stop reading right now.
But I guess that you’re a lot like me. Now and then, you get caught off guard.
And before you know it, you’re staying late to see that emergency patient. Bringing cupcakes for the second-grade class. Volunteering for the coffee meet-and-greet at church next Sunday.
What’s up with that? We’re smart. ...
Read more...
I was recently scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed when I came upon a long message chain started by one of my friends, an older woman from my hometown in New Jersey. She had seen a discussion given by a drug representative who was promoting administering Gardasil to early adolescents for the prevention of cervical cancer, and my friend wanted to know how other parents felt about allowing their children to ...
Read more...
Despite high interest and hopes, the clinical adoption of new mobile technologies such as smartphone apps and wearables for health care has been modest. While some clinicians and clinics are of course using the newest connected devices and apps, most would report they don’t regularly use mobile health technology yet. But they actually do. The vast majority of clinicians have been using mobile health technology for decades without even realizing ...
Read more...
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 59-year-old woman is evaluated for continued substernal chest pain. She presented with exertional chest pain 6 months ago that occurred with minimal ambulation. She was evaluated with a stress nuclear medicine myocardial perfusion study that showed no ST-segment changes but a small area of inducible ischemia in the lateral area of ...
Read more...
I was a licensed naturopathic doctor in two states. I quit practicing naturopathic medicine after discovering my former boss, also a licensed ND, had been importing and administering an illegal cancer drug. I trusted my boss, as did his patients, because he was well respected in the naturopathic community and his credentials included “FABNO” (Fellow of the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology). This FABNO treated any kind of cancer, even ...
Read more...
On any given night in the United States, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, over half a million people are without a home. That number may have decreased nationwide in the past few years, but California remains on the forefront of the problem, accounting for 20 percent of the country’s homeless in 2014.
With the winter’s freezing temperatures and El Niño’s massive rainstorms, what to do about the ...
Read more...
It’s January 2016. News stories have inspired significant anxiety about Zika virus. It’s a scary topic because news about the outbreaks are just unfolding, and this affects an already anxious group: pregnant mamas and expecting families. I want to share with you real-time information and data to try to alleviate anxiety and educate the best I can.
I suspect with time some of this will change. I’ve curated the most common questions and answers ...
Read more...
Past 6 Months
Physician burnout is physician abuse
Pamela Wible, MD | PhysicianDo physician health programs increase physician suicides?
Pamela Wible, MD | PhysicianWe lose a medical school full of physicians every year to suicide: An interview with Dr. Pamela Wible
Pamela Wible, MD | PhysicianThe first step to combat the nation’s obesity epidemic
Vincent DeGennaro, Jr., MD, MPH | ConditionsThe story of the pot-smoking neurosurgeon is more complicated than you think
Vamsi Aribindi | MedsWhy medical scribes are the ultimate answer to our health IT woes
Suneel Dhand, MD | Physician