"We need full transparency and empowerment of patients and doctors to make wise decisions. We must renew and restore the sanctity of the patient-doctor relationship. We need to stop pretending that health care can be 'free,' stop calling premium price...
"Health care delivery will always be inherently unpredictable and challenging. Those drawn to medicine are among our most resilient, but the current landscape reveals acutely a rise in burnout that exceeded acceptable levels even before the COVID-19...
"This is not what I signed up for. Have you ever said this when you are rushing home 1.5 hours after the last patient left and you still haven’t finished all your charting? You grab a handful of forms to take home with you with the hopeful...
"I now say getting divorced was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Through that painful circumstance, I rediscovered me. I learned more about myself and my ability to do hard things than at any point in my life since medical training....
"One of the best solutions to rising obesity and non-communicable disease rates lie in primary care. Medical professionals can influence the U.S. food system indirectly through demand and collective purchasing power by educating their patients to...
"I have closed my practice, but I have no plans to retire at the age of 52. I have started the journey to become a high school science teacher. There are frequent internet postings and blogs by physicians with strategies to retire young. I suspect...
"Definitions ground us in our profession and in our world. Definitions matter because they help us pause, give our body a moment to settle, and our breath time to move in and out. Our racist actions, inactions, and comments are invasive throughout our...
"The good news is that imposter syndrome can be quieted with increased awareness and replacing negative internal messages with positive ones. In our work together, I helped Sheila identify the voices, understand the positive role the voices fill (and...
"In the world of medicine, inordinate stress is instead accepted as just part of the job. If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen- or see a therapist on your own time and dime. I strongly believe that traditional therapy and psychiatry...
"As a young girl, I’d stand on my tiptoes, craning my neck to watch her sweep cerulean eye shadow across lids and smear foundation on sunken cheeks. While my high school friends resorted to secondhand eye shadow instruction from the pages of Teen...
"I just started laughing. It was early on Monday morning during our COVID surge. I couldn’t help myself. Phones were not on yet, but I already had triage COVID calls. “Put on your roller skates” was all I was thinking. I questioned my...
"As a professional woman who most identifies as a physician more than any other title, I know that I run the risk of losing myself to this disease. I am not ignorant to the risk. I understand that my identity is supposed to be separate...
"Research conducted by the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI), a nonprofit research organization in New York, defines the three pillars of executive presence (EP) as gravitas, communication, and image. Stated differently, EP reflects how you act, how...
"I am grateful that I work in a small rural hospital that is like a family. I am grateful that my organization has done everything in its power to protect us… but I hope we can do better. I hope medical workers have enough left within them to give...
"Let’s meet in the middle and listen to what’s happening in communities. All across U.S. communities, there are pockets of promise and programs focused on family interventions, behavior change, and health disparities, but there are many obstacles...
"When you’re applying to medical school, it’s remarkable how much four years or more of intense work can come down to one single day. The medical school interview is high stakes: studies have found that interview performance is the most important...
"Despite forces not within our control, namely the thoughts and actions of others, headway has been made in my local practice area: the decline in mortality, the advances in clinical knowledge about the pathophysiology, more efficient testing,...
"At the start of the pandemic when hospitals were overrun, testing and PPE were scarce, and unknowns about COVID-19 transmission abound, such restrictions were reasonable, perhaps even essential. But we have made progress since then; most hospitals...
"A scientific achievement can never have success on its own unless if it has acceptance in the social context by the masses. I think that the concerns brought forward by the vaccine-doubters cannot be dismissed as ignorance, and it is hard to convince...
"The rapid change-over to telemedicine in March of 2020 brought predictable challenges to health care at large and substance use disorder treatment in particular: patients without the skill set to navigate HIPAA-compliant apps, phones with too little...
"While behavioral health integration (BHI) has been a long-standing conversation in collaborative care or health’s team-based approach, it hasn’t always been clearly defined and rarely means more than referring a patient in need to a specialist....
"When we think about holistic medicine, many assume that it requires human-to-human touch points and, therefore, doesn’t lend itself well to technology and innovations such as artificial intelligence. In fact, holistic medicine and whole-person care...
"I would encourage you to see amazing women on social media for who they are in the future. Maybe figure out where they have been and what they are working toward. Maybe even figure out how ways to help each other solve the problems this...
"Yearly physicals are usually afforded a longer time than regular visits. If I can use most of that time focusing the discussion on what a healthy life means to each of my patients and what they need to achieve it, I feel that I’ve accomplished more...