This resident works 100+ hours per week, but is still a poorly trained surgeon

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[Get it now]. --------------------------------------------------------------- KevinMD Today: Dec. 15, 2016 [This resident works 100+ hours per week, but is still a poorly trained surgeon] I am forced to write anonymously because of gross neglect by my residency program regarding standard ACGME duty-hour rules. If my name were published, it would identify my program. As a PGY-2, I worked 100+ hours per week on average last year while taking primary call for my urology department. (Admittedly, the PGY-2 is the […] [5 symptoms of secondhand Alzheimer’s] My mom had Alzheimer’s. And she gave me secondhand Alzheimer’s. Haven’t heard of secondhand Alzheimer’s? I’m not surprised. I think I coined the term. The way I saw it, either I had some devastating disease as a result of taking care of Mom with her devastating disease, or I was a complete jerk. Since I […] [Practicing medicine in the Trump era] When I started medical school, my classmates and I attended a special ceremony where we stood in front of our friends, family, and professors and recited some modern version of the Hippocratic Oath. For years afterward, I only remembered the “do no harm” bit, which is a lazy approximation of the actual words. I recently […] [Medical students can make a difference in health care] I recently read an article that my future in medicine would be mediocre. It made me reflect on some things. Like the author of that article, I am a fourth-year medical student waiting to graduate and start my training in residency, the training that will prepare me for a successful career as a physician. Like […] [Does medical school ever pay off?] In an oft-cited psychology experiment from the 1960s done at Stanford, toddlers were isolated in a room with a table on which sat a single marshmallow. If they could resist the temptation to eat it, as they were told by the experimenters, they would be rewarded with two marshmallows later on. If we replaced these […] [Repealing the Affordable Care Act won’t be a big deal. Here’s why.] Supporters of the health care status quo are outraged, predictably, over what they see as Donald Trump’s search-and-destroy mission on Obamacare. They cite all of the newly insured people under the Affordable Care Act — then turn to gloom-and-doom scenarios, insisting everyone will lose insurance, especially those who are low-income and on Medicaid. Change is […] [No matter what Trump does to health care, we must accept an imperfect reality] Tom is a forty-three-year-old self-employed painter and father of two. He’s currently in remission from lung cancer, having been first diagnosed five years ago. At the time of his diagnosis, he did not have health insurance. Thankfully, for him, American law had finally made it illegal for health insurance companies to discriminate against individuals with […] [Acts of violence against children have 2 victims] I don’t want to dramatize the death of a nineteen-month-old girl who passed away this summer from wounds secondary to child abuse. I just want to document that it happened. That in late August, as I was signing out my patients to the resident taking over for me in the ED, an infant was wheeled in […] [Obamacare isn’t a job killer] According to many conservative pundits, Obamacare is a job killer. Five days before Obama signed the law, in fact, speaker John Boehner declared that the president was pushing “his job-killing government takeover of health care that will hurt small businesses.” Years after the law was passed, critics continued trumpeting this theme, Ted Cruz calling Obamacare […] [Will technology destroy the art of medicine?] One of the topics that I write most about is the interaction of health care information technology with frontline clinical medicine, which I believe to be among the most critical issues facing the practice of medicine at the moment. With statistics now suggesting that doctors (and nurses) are spending an absolute minimal amount of their […] [Please tell me what a “mommy-friendly” medical career is] I had a familiar conversation the other day with yet another female medical student. “I really loved surgery!” she said, “but I was concerned about the lifestyle, so I decided on ______.” Lifestyle — it turns out — almost always seems to be code for having a family. Maybe it’s just the kind of students […] [How can doctors avoid burnout?] Medicine has become increasingly stressful for all levels of health care providers. Every year, nearly 400 physicians commit suicide, and in a study published in the Journal of Academic Medicine, researchers found that almost 10 percent of final year medical students and first-year residents (called interns) reported having suicidal thoughts. Previous studies from the […] [Why the AMA supports Dr. Price to lead HHS] The AMA supports the nomination of Dr. Tom Price based on decades of interactions with him as a member of the AMA House of Delegates, Georgia state senator and as a member of the House of Representatives since 2005. Over these years, there have been important policy issues on which we agreed (medical liability reform) […] [Anesthetic neurotoxicity in infants and children: Current state-of-the-art] A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com. The possibility of anesthetic neurotoxicity in infants and children — the supposition that anesthesia may alter normal activity in the nervous system – was first suggested more than 15 years ago with findings of increased neuronal cell death in the developing brains of rodents after […] [A difficult patient helps a doctor see the light. Literally.] In November of my intern year, I had trouble finding the sun. It was dark when I woke up for work, and it was dark when I headed back home. I’d picked up the service on the cancer ward from an intern named Bob, and he left me six handwritten pages on the subject of […] [Not all patients share the same views on end of life] As an oncologist, I have witnessed patients go home and heard later how they died there, surrounded by family and friends. I have seen others die in a hospital room, comforted by the care of the inpatient team even as they depart this earth. These are the ones that stick with me and what I […] --------------------------------------------------------------- [Follow on Facebook] | [Twitter] --------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the KevinMD e-newsletter. 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