The Day After the Elections
Depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide–these are the very real side effects of Trump policies. My visit with Mr. A on the morning after the midterm elections seemed to crystallize all the bitterness of what has been unleashed in this country, and the effects it has on the people who suffer under it. More
Child Separation Is a Medical Emergency
In adult medicine, we see daily the physical and psychological effects of early childhood trauma. Well into older age, patients retain the scars and setbacks from those early experiences. The list of effects of early childhood trauma is so expansive that it wasn’t surprising to see the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics refer to border agents’ removal of children from parents as “government-sanctioned child abuse.†More
Your Medical Chart Might be Biased
Medical charts are the primary means of communication among medical professionals. Coded language in the charts covertly signals to other members of the team which patients aren’t trustworthy or deserving. What does it mean when doctors and nurses–consciously or unconsciously–slip dog whistles into your medical chart? More
Medical Humanities
When your body threatens mutiny and you are peering into the abyss, you want a doctor who has contemplated mortality in a deep way. Being sick is indeed hell and every patient deserves a Virgil. Infusing the medical training with a bit more Virgil just might be the key. More
A Tax Plan that’s a Medical Emergency
Three members of the U.S. Congress are physicians. But they seem to share a collective amnesia about the Hippocratic Oath. The bill being proposed by Republicans is about taxes, but the toll on our health could be worse than the toll on our wallets. More
Healthcare’s Biggest Conflict of Interest
The doctor-patient relationship is a one-on-one interaction, and so conflicts of interest are concrete and directly personal. Medical decisions can be swayed by money, even unconsciously, regardless of whether it’s from insurance companies or from industry. But the most basic conflict of interest is that health care access is tied to health insurance. Presence or absence or extent of health insurance is the most powerful influence on how doctors care for patients. More
It’s Time for a Single-Payer Plan
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised better health care at a lower cost that would include everyone. Although he almost certainly did not realize it, he was promoting an idea of universal health care that could only be achieved by a single-payer plan. More
Is Gun Violence like Chicken Pox?
Gun violence has been characterized as an epidemic. But can a disease model of contagion help predict future victims and potentially protect them? Is gun violence really like chicken pox? More
Gaps in Coverage from GOP’s Health Plan Can be Deadly
When patients get “lost to follow-upâ€â€”for whatever reason—their health status plummets. Often times the damage wrought by gaps in care and inconsistent access is permanent. When was the last time that a president of the United States deliberately put so many Americans in harm’s way? More
Is Your Doctor Listening?
Doctor-patient communication is a two-way highway of information, with each person endeavoring to convey information to the other. But there can be numerous roadblocks and detours, as anyone who has been party to our medical system can attest. More
Should Doctors Treat Trump Anxiety?
Doctors deal with side effects all the time—side effects of medications, side effects of diseases, side effects of treatments. But side effects of an election is new territory for us. We can report medication side effects to the FDA, but to whom do we report election side effects? More
The Insanity of Recertification
Studying for the boards is like stuffing your face at a hot dog–eating contest: The first few hundred pages are intriguing and tasty; the next few hundred are interesting, but your brain is feeling sluggish. The remaining thousand pages are just confettied sauerkraut delivered by dump-truck onto a comatose slop of neurons. More
Physician Suicide and the Tyranny of Perfection
Doctors have the highest suicide rates of any professional group. But losing two of our newest members within a week of each other is a painful reminder of the dangers of our profession. More
The Raw Fear of Being a Patient
At that moment, my faith in science plummeted from beneath me. My decades of medical training, my Ph.D. in biochemistry, my grounding in the scientific method, all evaporated in the blink of an eye. More
The Doctor Will See Your EMR Now
Like the milkman of yore, the doctor makes rounds every day in the hospital. Alas, this image would be true today only if a computer terminal were plunked in the bed instead of a patient More
