Why medical students should not let medicine define them

--------------------------------------------------------------- Here are the stories you missed on KevinMD. Thank you for your continuing readership. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsors Alarm fatigue is a serious issue: 87% of clinicians say alarms for non-actionable issues occur frequently in their hospital. [Start combating it today]( by downloading this essential guide. [Get it now](. Seven out of 10 physicians are unwilling to recommend their chosen profession to their children or other family members. Find out some of the reasons why in the nationwide [Future of Healthcare Survey]( of over 3,400 physicians. Tech-savvy practices are [ditching manual phone calls]( to communicate with patients. Here are [5 ways]( you can too. [Case study]( Discover how University of Maryland Capital Region Health improved staff communications and reduced the time to deploy critical codes by 50%. [Read now](. Each extra log-on can add up to thousands of hours of lost time that could be spent with your patients, improving your overall quality of care. [Learn more about EHR integration]( with Imprivata. --------------------------------------------------------------- KevinMD Plus: Nov 5, 2018 [Why medical students should not let medicine define them]( Sanjay Gupta. John Locke. Jill Stein. Charles Krauthammer. What do they all have in common? If you guessed that they are all physicians, then you’re right. Less salient, however, is the fact that all of them pursued passions outside of medicine. (Dr. Gupta is an Emmy Award-winning medical reporter. John Locke was a physician-philosopher. Stein […] [The doctor is in, but please check your bias at the door]( “What’s the deal with your people?” As a baffled second-year resident, I looked up through my scrub mask at the Caucasian female attending with whom I was operating. I had an idea about what she was referring to as I overheard her complain about a laboring patient while she was scrubbing with the other Caucasian […] [Our role as parents in the opioid epidemic]( A few months ago, I was having lunch with a friend. He mentioned a recent outpatient surgery that he had and indicated that upon being discharged, he was given a prescription for 30 pain pills. Although the recovery was uncomfortable, the pain was not overwhelming. But, as a precaution, it was assumed that he needed […] [A bad outcome changed this physician’s life]( I’m struggling — truly struggling. This year has been beyond hard. I honestly never thought this time last year that I would be in this predicament. Things were good, I had a great job, and I was working on our fixing up our dream retirement home. We had great vacations every year. Yes, the home […] [Make sure you pay attention to your medical interpreter]( During my flight from Denver to Japan, I watched a movie called Un Traductor. It is a true story directed by the children of the couple who are the main characters in the movie. The reason why I chose this movie was that there was a Brazilian actor in it. Even so, I was not […] --------------------------------------------------------------- [Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com](. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. [Learn more](. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Gender-diverse youth need pediatrician advocates]( For many pediatricians, the thought of providing care to children who live outside of gender norms is daunting. But it is time for the pediatric community to awaken to the realities of our world. We need to stand behind our gender-expansive and transgender children, because their well-being depends on it. Under our current administration, we […] [Silence isn’t golden when it comes to health]( When I was a preemie — all two-and-a-half pounds of me — my mom was understandably worried. She said her doctor wheeled her down the hall to the newborn nursery, and my mom could hear me screaming all the way down the hall. She said, “I’ve got to hand it to you. You let your […] [This is how your vote affects children’s health]( As pediatricians who care for fragile, premature babies — we know firsthand the road to child health runs through quality health insurance coverage. Our patients require breathing machines, customized intravenous nutrition, expensive, specialized equipment and 24/7 monitoring in the neonatal intensive care unit, often with a dedicated nurse. The high-tech care our patients require is […] [Does that patient really need antibiotics?]( For those of you who have been following my story since this summer of 2018, you will remember that I quit my nine-to-five job to pursue a career in public speaking on a more semi-permanent basis. I started working essentially full-time with a national telemedicine company. I am extremely excited about the opportunity and very […] [Medical waste is a bigger problem than you might realize]( The nature of the crime? Bringing my reusable food container down for meals. I just wanted to avoid the Styrofoam plates and plastic silverware, but the lunch ladies were convinced I was asking for two portions’ worth of side dishes and then only paying for one. I wasn’t, although I admit to once sprinkling cheese from the salad […] [Why demanding a randomized controlled trial for vaccines is disingenuous]( I swiped this editorial cartoon by Steve Sack from the redoubtable Dr. David Gorski’s blog, who goes by the nom-de-web of Orac. Recent epidemiology shows reducing the fraction of vaccinated children in the population rather promptly leads to a resurgence of the diseases vaccines protect against. This is the concept of community or herd immunity. Epidemiologists debate the concept […] [What can politicians do to address the opioid crisis?]( I doubt there is anyone living in the U.S. who doesn’t realize we have an opioid crisis here. Politicians debate the solutions to abating the high death rate that comes along with it, however, they fail to acknowledge that there are Americans in pain. Yes, we need to be sure opioids are prescribed judiciously. However, […] [What this student learned from a standardized patient exam]( Many people think medical school is all about memorization and books. But some of the most valuable lessons I learned in my first year as a medical student came from a much different experience. No matter what stage you are at in your journey, there are always new facts, techniques, and procedures to learn. You […] [Beware of food sensitivity tests on Facebook]( Facebook. Where else could I stumble on a video of a baby hippo taking a bath, or Toto’s Africa performed on solo Harp? But among the shares and silliness and talent, there’s a dark side to Facebook. It’s become a fast way for quacks to push their scams and empty your wallet. Just today in my feed […] [Being a physician was never the objective. The goal was becoming one.]( There is a saying among students that medical education is like “taking a drink out of a fire hydrant.” The simile evokes the torrent of information and the impossibility of taking it all in. The type of people who are admitted to medical school aren’t used to being wrong; to call them perfectionists wouldn’t be […] [Stop blaming senior moments]( “He’s having a senior moment.” That dismissive phrase seems harmless, but, in reality, it leads to devastating, debilitating disease. I firmly believe that a generation from now, people will not know the pain of watching a loved one slip into oblivion. But the only way we will get there is we stop dismissing memory loss […] [It’s time we start voting at our local hospitals]( Early voting began recently in Texas with unprecedented excitement, as a record 15 million registered voters made their way to the polls. Reports say polls are looking more like Black Friday shopping lines than early voting locations. Although we cannot predict the results of the election, one thing is clear: healthcare is the top issue. This is […] [MKSAP: 79-year-old man with a sacral ulcer]( Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 79-year-old man is evaluated for pain in the buttocks region. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin large B-cell lymphoma 6 months ago. Although his lymphoma has responded well to therapy and he is without evidence of active disease, he required hospitalization […] [6 ways to better work with physician recruiters]( This article is sponsored by Careers by KevinMD.com. When searching for a new job, building strong relationships is an important part of the process, especially when you’re working with a physician recruiter. The relationship you create with your recruiter will set the tone for your job search and ultimately have an effect on whether or […] [Physicians are more than their jobs]( I had a strange thought that both delighted and frightened me in my intern year: I was sitting in my parent’s living room, exhausted. I had been fortunate enough to complete residency near my parents and visited with them pretty regularly. I realized that being a doctor is like no other job because you eat, […] [When Western medicine fails patients and clinicians]( It’s a common scenario: a patient shows up to my office lugging a bagful of over-the-counter supplements, defiantly informing me that they “don’t believe in prescription drugs.” In the very next breath, they present a lab slip with a list of bloodwork that their alternative medicine doctor wants me to order to help diagnose their […] [Prescribing unnecessary antibiotics is the path of least resistance]( During my urgent care shifts, I see 20 to 30 people with viral upper respiratory infections. They are all feeling miserable, and they just want to feel better. They want an impressive-sounding diagnosis to justify their suffering to themselves, their spouses, and their bosses. They want a prescription medication which will immediately cure their illness, […] --------------------------------------------------------------- If a friend sent you this email and you want to subscribe, go to [KevinMD](. --------------------------------------------------------------- 345 Hudson Street New York NY 10014 USA [Unsubscribe]( | [Change Subscriber Options](