"Feedback in the assessment stage is always useful for improving the design of a device — especially as it relates to improving long-term aspects, such as patient outcomes or cost-effectiveness. This kind of feedback can only come after a device has been on the market and in use for a while, and after doctors have had a chance to see the long-term effects that use of a product has for their patients — for example, in the recovery period following procedures. The involvement of doctors is of utmo...
Sep 06, 2021•19 min
"As I approach this last stretch of residency, still entrenched in the rigors of training and the intensity of raising three young children under five years old, I am in a unique position of being able to reflect on the years and look ahead at what I want to build at the same time. It has been a lonely, emotional, seemingly endless journey at times. We mothers and doctors are barraged with messages that we do not belong here, straddling both roles. The work of dismantling these messages will be ...
Sep 05, 2021•21 min
"While the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and normalized the need for increased mental and behavioral health services over the last year and a half, addressing mental health issues as a regular form of their wellness will persist beyond the pandemic. However, as the adoption of virtual technologies continues to open up more access to care, the potential to successfully meet the rising demand for these services is promising. The last 18 months have shown us that providers are making huge strides in he...
Sep 04, 2021•15 min
"I’m smart enough to be a physician. As if being the smartest person in the room makes you the best physician in the room. Hint, it doesn’t. Being a good physician is a culmination of knowledge, skills, and strengths that you, as an individual physician, uniquely brings to the field. It’s taken some rewiring to pull shame out of my professional narrative. Shame is not there to serve you. It’s there to diminish you and to prevent you from fully embracing and accepting all parts of yourself, flaws...
Sep 03, 2021•21 min
"In times of uncertainty, human behavior often makes people resort to less-than-stellar behaviors; unhealthy personal environments can become manifest as well. Often, these coincide with health care being used more frequently and the safe haven of health care delivery being sought. With all physicians being leaders, it is incumbent upon us to demonstrate a variety of professional qualities, and we must also draw on our own human qualities to succeed as well." Peter Angood is CEO and president, A...
Sep 02, 2021•22 min
"I implore you — even if it’s difficult — if you don’t like your doctor, take the time and find a new one! How do you do that? Check your insurance for who they cover, and then ask your friends who they see and like. Google the physician. Google the practice. Google the hospital. Put as much effort into this as you would buying a car. This person needs to be reliable, safe, up-to-date and needs to make sense for you. Let’s all make 2021 the year we take better care of ourselves. You deserve exce...
Sep 01, 2021•13 min
"We focus on ensuring our solution works equally well for English speakers with any accent. We regularly hear from doctors how much of a difference this makes in their ability to deliver high-quality patient care. It’s our hope that more health tech vendors will take a good look at what they’ve chosen to prioritize and how that may contribute to inequities within the system. The factors which inspired the American Medical Association to recognize racism as a public health threat demand that we a...
Aug 31, 2021•16 min
"I bring this to your attention because, in 1971, I took an oath to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to all indentured pupils who have taken the Healer’s Oath. Having done so, if it strikes you that, during the aforementioned trial, an opportunity was missed, only to be rectified by the Court of Special Appeals, then I leave you with this admonition. When you are a defendant in a malpractice suit, and you believe you are in the right, be relentless and use everything a...
Aug 30, 2021•17 min
"The first step to hospital recovery is the collection and analysis of data. Organizations that effectively leverage data to optimize surgery can see rapid, quantifiable, and sustained improvements in metrics that directly link to operational efficiency and associated financial benefits. The current situation presents a unique opportunity for hospitals to implement new tools to recalibrate how surgical services are evaluated, delivered, and experienced by the patient and provider. Doing this now...
Aug 29, 2021•16 min
"The dramatic uptick in mental distress, trauma, and substance use since last year has driven a corresponding rise in the use of virtual mental health therapy and psychiatric care, helping us, as a society, more effectively grapple with the fallout from the pandemic. According to one study, more than half of the people who used telehealth in May 2020 used it for a mental health concern. Virtual care has the added benefit of increased privacy and access to care for people who have difficulty gett...
Aug 28, 2021•19 min
"When I teach medical students who rotate with me at my clinic, I ask them to write about the single most negative and single most positive emotional experiences they have had in their 3 to 4 years of training thus far. Commonly, I see fear as a negative emotion and pride in self-worth as the positive. When we break it down, their fear often stems from not knowing if they did a good enough job working up a tough case. The students talk about facts, etiologies, treatment plans, and what could hav...
Aug 27, 2021•18 min
"Just as Simone Biles has her detractors, there will always be physicians unable to empathize with their mentally ill colleagues, believing psychological struggles are a constant state of being human. But if taking care of oneself means temporarily leaving the workforce to receive professional treatment, then so be it. Physicians are beginning to feel empowered to protect themselves. Their acts of self-care can be seen as the first step in protecting and preserving mental health. Being mentally ...
Aug 26, 2021•17 min
"According to AAMC, the median debt for medical students in 2019 was $200,000. Unfortunately, fundraising for scholarships was difficult for many organizations due to the pandemic despite more students seeking out scholarships. Luckily, more anonymous generous donors have helped the next generations of physicians in recent years, but what happens if you are not as lucky to go to one of those tuition-free schools? Frankly, your options are limited. You can invest, work, apply for scholarships. Wh...
Aug 25, 2021•14 min
"Our country is facing a voting crisis with multiple layers: chronically low overall voter participation, even lower voter participation among physicians and — to add insult to injury — an increasing number of laws that make voting more difficult, especially for those with chronic health conditions. Voter registration in health care settings can be part of the solution to all these problems — problems that threaten the health of a democratic society. Through these civic health conversations, bot...
Aug 24, 2021•14 min
"Currently working in a COVID ICU in a tertiary center in Kathmandu, I have experienced how difficult it is for the health system to manage the patient load. A month ago, ICU beds were fully occupied, ventilator alarms would set off time and again, indicating low flow as the hospitals faced shortages of oxygen supplies, emergency rooms were over-occupied, and patients waited in queues to receive oxygen or just to be checked up by a doctor. At such a desperate time, telemedicine is a noble initia...
Aug 23, 2021•17 min
"Until recently, voice changes from menopause and aging have been almost unmentionable. If a woman talked about her challenges, especially if she was a professional singer, it could have meant decreased opportunities and even the end of her career. Most women have stayed silent, coping as best as they can, assuming that they have to deal with their baffling voice issues by themselves. But that is not the case. Millions of women around the world are on the same path, and we no longer need to walk...
Aug 22, 2021•15 min
"A rough career transition in 2019 followed by the pandemic highlighted how I was still financially tethered to my job — after 10 years of practicing as a subspecialty trained radiologist, saving, maxing out my retirement accounts, and investing in the stock market and in real estate. Looking around, I saw other physicians in a similar predicament. After years dedicated to rigorous training, we were still trapped by “golden handcuffs.” High income was not necessarily translating to high net wort...
Aug 21, 2021•22 min
"With this single word, mom had now completely altered her willingness to see the deep suffering of her child. This single word watered all of this child’s five years of depression, crippling anxiety, history full of ACEs, and very significant struggle down to a simple, selfish, flippant choice. Furthermore, mom said that the nursing staff asked her about the medications. Mom informed me that: 'The nurse said maybe it’s the Wellbutrin making her this way. Maybe she is suicidal because of this?' ...
Aug 20, 2021•19 min
"While we still lack a complete cause and effect model of Alzheimer’s disease, there is no doubt that the etiology is multifaceted and nonlinear. This accounts for the fact that it takes an incredibly long time for Alzheimer’s disease to develop. I mention this because one of the major problems with FDA approval has always been that it insists on utilizing the same framework and methodology of approving drugs designed to treat long-term diseases as it would with short-term diseases." Robert Tren...
Aug 19, 2021•19 min
"Dehumanizing patients can lead to indifference in physicians. It is a privilege to be trusted to take care of every patient we encounter, yet we can lose sight of this and begin to see our patients as a burden, or as units of work, rather than as individuals. When individual patients cease to matter, we cease to care. This is the precipice of burnout and invites mistakes and poor behavior, such as cutting corners or pushing the envelope by exposing patients to excessive risks. Often, physicians...
Aug 18, 2021•18 min
"Toward the end of my clinical career, I didn’t feel like I had control over much at all. The patient safety issues loomed large. We used ridiculous workarounds for broken processes. The constant vigilance to provide excellent care in a suboptimal environment was exhausting. I didn’t see anything I could change. Based on my work with physicians as a coach, I think that the sense of powerlessness and being a “cog in a wheel” is now at an all-time high. While on an uninspiring stretch of road on a...
Aug 17, 2021•20 min
"Physicians have had a rough century, so far. In addition to battling COVID-19, doctors have spent the past two decades fighting the health care industry’s fiercest players and losing, badly. Power in the industry now belongs to health insurance companies, major drugmakers, and hospital tycoons. Physicians feel beaten up, burned out, and abused by a system so overrun with regulations that clinicians now spend more time filling out paperwork than helping patients. Doctors long for the last centur...
Aug 16, 2021•31 min
"Maybe it’s a testament to a hardy relationship that there was no resulting argument. Without thinking, I blurted out, 'You are so sexist!' I could immediately tell by my husband’s face, his upper eyelids and eyebrows lifted a bit, his mouth freeze-framed in a small 'o' — my exclamation surprised and insulted him. Maybe it was a completely unfair assessment; after all, he was standing at the sink, his hands covered in soap, washing the dinner dishes. Can you be sexist and clean up after a meal? ...
Aug 15, 2021•20 min
"Suffering something similar in my career, I know the detrimental impact of not having a voice or being heard in the medical community. Medical professionals do not want to appear weak, so they continue until something breaks. As a pain physician, I understand where the frontline health care workers are coming from. The intense pain and suffering that they are experiencing. I want to help those that feel this pain before it becomes too much. In my writings, I reveal my own personal journey from ...
Aug 14, 2021•24 min
"Extensive media coverage of the emotional and death tolls that COVID-19 inflicted on nursing homes has intensified concern for preserving the humanity of an often-overlooked population. There is an opportunity to re-examine the policies and practices that shape the nursing home experience and to add quality metrics that capture the aspects of life and community that matter most to residents and their families." Carol Podgorski is an associate professor of psychiatry. She shares her story and di...
Aug 13, 2021•20 min
"Looking to other countries that provide universal coverage to see what works and what would fit well for the U.S. is an option. Countries like France, Australia, and England provide universal coverage and rank their health care systems very highly, and are culturally and socioeconomically similar to the U.S. Whatever health care direction the country moves toward, it is essential to prioritize universal coverage. Otherwise, Americans will eventually end up paying for inefficient, expensive serv...
Aug 12, 2021•15 min
"Like many scary health scenarios where patients seek some modicum of influence, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to patient demand for 'immune-boosting' dietary supplements. Toilet paper wasn’t the only essential item being limited by stores; bottles of zinc and vitamin C flew off the shelves as consumers stocked up. The role of vitamin D in COVID-19 has been conflated and deflated depending on the study-du-jour. And of the eight 'drugs' in President Trump’s top-of-the line treatment, three of the...
Aug 11, 2021•23 min
"Remember, board certification is supposed to be an option and not a requirement. Unfortunately, finding and keeping your dream job if you’re not board certified will add unwanted stress for you and your family. And in case you’re wondering, I don’t work for or have anything to gain from informing you about any other board. I want you to know that you have other valid options for taking your boards, regardless of what you’re made to believe during residency. So at this point, you may be asking y...
Aug 10, 2021•22 min
"Visit a nursing home and talk with some of the residents. They are not only moms and dads, but also retired teachers, first responders, former athletes, government employees, and soldiers—the basis of our country’s past lives within these walls. Older adults should be honored with the dignity they deserve. As we again open as a society after this pandemic, make that commitment and visit a nursing home. Just make sure after you enter, the door doesn’t lock behind you." Gene Uzawa Dorio is an int...
Aug 09, 2021•21 min
"COVID-19 has changed nearly every aspect of society as we know it, and doctors in hospitals across America are at the forefront of those changes. As a pediatric infectious diseases doctor who also writes curriculum to help the next generation of doctors prepare for their medical exams, I’ve seen firsthand how this current pandemic is changing our roles with patients, shifting what families and communities expect from us, and expediting advances in training and information sharing across the fie...
Aug 08, 2021•17 min
