Medical
Moving forward in medicine with your significant other
The transition from resident to doctor is overwhelming and can impact your personal life deeply, particularly within the context of your relationship. It is important to sit down and discuss with your partner or spouse and discuss your excitement and fear during this odd phase of life. Although the transition can make or break a…
Read MoreOrientation to HEAL: the 4th best electronic medical record
An excerpt from Man’s 4th Best Hospital, Now available in paperback from Penguin/Berkley. And in the Fat Man Clinic, what about billing? We would do it ourselves on our screens. Using HEAL, the EHR or Electronic ‘Health’ Record system that BUDDIES had installed in Man’s 4th Best and its other hospitals and clinics, at a cost…
Read MoreMoral injury and practicing oncology during COVID-19 [PODCAST]
“As our office begins to return to pre-COVID operations, it has been uplifting to have a relative sense of normalcy, even though morale seems to be reduced. It is difficult to promote team building and improve morale when everyone has to maintain social distancing. I would love to go out for a meal with my…
Read MoreA physician at the precipice of the pandemic’s next wave
We sit silently on this precipice—my family, my friends, my colleagues. Time spins. Momentum is building. It is a tidal wave slowly moving towards us. We are fixed in its path of raging destruction. It is our enemy, not each other. Each tick on the clock, an ICU bed filling across the West—an exponential net…
Read MoreAdvice from a psychiatrist during these unprecedented times
Unprecedented. How many times have we heard that word? Yet, here we balance between the life we knew and the life we long for with the deep, frightening chasm of the unknown strikingly in between. 2020 has not only been one for the history books; it has upended lives. The world economy crawls along, jobless…
Read MoreThe pandemic has only further strengthened my passion to become a physician
As a first-year medical student, the transition to an online curriculum has posed a unique set of challenges. I am often asked, “How exactly can you become a doctor without having seen a patient, without having put a stethoscope on another human being?” I’ve been told many times already by my professors that to listen…
Read MoreThis Lung Cancer Awareness Month is like no other
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, a time when many people in my profession shine a spotlight on the dangers of taking lung health for granted. This year, few need the reminder. COVID-19 is deadly, contagious, and upending life as we know it. It is also a lung disease. As a thoracic surgeon, I tell…
Read MorePut your thank you into action: Wear masks correctly and avoid large gatherings
I have a video visit in the pulmonary clinic with one of my favorite patients. I ask her how she’s doing and wave to her husband sitting in the background of the living room where she is set up. Deborah says, “We’re good. We’re healthy. We are staying home. We miss our grandchildren and have…
Read MoreEarly birds may be more active, but night owls can catch up
Being an early bird has long been associated with a go-getter attitude. Early birds, or those who tend to wake early and go to bed early, are people who naturally feel sleepy earlier in the evening and naturally wake early in the morning. For an early bird type, a 9 pm bedtime may be the…
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