How this physician escaped the system

Here are the stories you missed on KevinMD. Thank you for your continuing readership. --------------------------------------------------------------- Here are the stories you missed on [KevinMD](. Thank you for your continuing readership. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsors [The Guide to Secure Messaging in Healthcare](. Learn strategies for keeping your data secure, how to make secure messaging part of a larger communication system, ways to roll out your solution, and more. [Read the ultimate guide to defining]( and deploying secure messaging in health care. As many patients [fear in-office visits]( during COVID-19, physicians should consider strategies to encourage patients to [come in when necessary](. Get a free copy of [Money Insights for Physicians]( which teaches doctors the proven path to move from high income to high net worth! [Take the F3 Assessment]( and find out where you’re at along the path to financial freedom. [The Podcast by KevinMD](. 15 minutes a day 7 days a week. Concise, digestible, and filled with information, insight, and inspiration. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your [favorite podcast app](. --------------------------------------------------------------- KevinMD Plus: Feb 11, 2021 [How this physician escaped the system]( “Wrong! The most important part of your job is to make money.” I will never forget those words from an attending in residency – though I did not know it at the time, it was a pivotal moment in my decision to pursue a nontraditional route in medicine. I loved my patients; I loved the […] [Pressure to breastfeed: from inside or out?]( I had very difficult experiences breastfeeding both of my children. I had constant pain, recurrent plugged ducts, and a lot of latch problems. There were many times when I considered quitting, but I persevered because it meant a lot to me, and I would have felt like I was failing had I stopped. Does this […] [After a stroke, a physician experiences true vulnerability]( “I think I’m having a stroke.” The words struggled to leave my mouth as I spoke to the 9-1-1 operator. Emotionally in disbelief, the words seemed so unusual to say in the first person. Ten minutes earlier, overwhelming nausea and drenching sweats woke me abruptly from sleep. Thinking it was something I ate, I immediately […] [The United States earns a D+ on the vaccine effort]( The United States has, so far, earned a solid D+ on the vaccine effort. The high mark is not an F because people are actually being vaccinated. There are a multitude of factors that are making this already incredibly complex situation unnecessarily convoluted. From my research, which has been motivated by my company’s development of […] [A story of esophageal variceal rupture]( An excerpt from 50 Years in the OR: True Stories of Life, Loss, and Laughter While Giving Anesthesia. Chronic long-term alcoholism causes many health problems, not the least of which is cirrhosis of the liver. In advanced cases of cirrhosis, the liver becomes full of scar tissue and its many functions are then impaired, causing […] --------------------------------------------------------------- [Thousands of physicians are browsing this job board](. They love its selection of over 12,000 openings across the U.S. [Physicians are finding opportunities they almost missed](. --------------------------------------------------------------- [My heart as a physician has been weighted with the pain I have witnessed]( There is such beauty that arises when we simply smile at our children’s faces. Their roaring belly laughs, their absolute delight in catching snowflakes on their tongues on an early February afternoon, and their joyful playground adventures just a few days prior when the weather graced us with sunshine and a peek into the hopeful […] [A dose of positivity? Just what the doctor ordered.]( We have dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, and its disruptions to our lives, for a year. And all the news reports, the dire warnings, and the messages of doom and gloom reinforce a feeling of despair as we face yet another week of virtual school, along with time away from the activities and the people […] [How a physician breaks bad news is just as important as the bad news itself]( Medicine is an art. One can learn about symptoms, diagnostics, and treatment plans for various diseases, from textbooks and journal articles. It is harder to study empathy, compassion, and human connection from conventional academic resources. The art of medicine is discovered, acquired, and absorbed on the job by interacting and connecting with patients and their […] [Doctors are killing themselves, and who is taking notice? [PODCAST]]( “I can do better. We can do better. Please partner with me and advocate for the ability for doctors and residents in our profession to receive medical and psychiatric care without fear of losing our licenses or having to face stigma and judgment. It can save lives. Please, we are more stressed than ever, and […] [Stop the us vs. them mentality in medicine]( As a foreign medical graduate and a multiple-time career changer — from being a doctor to a hospital process improvement and leadership coach to a business professor to a transformational career coach for female physicians — I have closely examined the U.S. health care industry from various lenses. The one thing that stands out for […] [Why health care fails to deliver better value in patient care]( There is a strong push for health care to move towards greater value-based care (VBC) arrangements. The prospect of VBC holds the opportunity to re-create partnerships designed to increase health care sustainability by strategically improving processes, care delivery, and patient outcomes to achieve higher quality output at a decreased cost. Furthermore, the held potential will […] [How physicians can engage on social media]( During a casual scroll through social media, I often hear the voice of my friend and fellow pediatrician warning, “Do not engage!” Generally speaking, this is almost always the correct advice. The rise of various social media platforms, the ability to rapidly share information and disinformation, the growing culture of doing one’s own “research,” and […] [The case for physician peer coaching]( I love metaphors. I think they can be so powerful and can convey so much, sometimes with just a few words. One metaphor we use in coaching to describe the coach’s role in a session with their client is that of a swimming pool. The client is in the swimming pool, and as the coach […] [Voting and vaccination are 2 sides of the same coin]( In the past year, the United States has faced compounding challenges as it struggled to control the COVID-19 pandemic and grappled with significant civil unrest. The American pandemic response has been primarily determined by the guidance—or lack thereof—of elected officials and enacted policies at the local, state, and federal levels. Now, with the development of […] [Reforming the peer review process [PODCAST]]( “The peer-review process is fallible, slow, and biased, and it takes advantage of the scientific community’s altruism. We need to keep pushing the conversation forward about making publishing more equitable, timely, accessible, and fair. An obvious and easy way to begin is to pay the experts who perform the peer reviews. Either the journals need […] [The pandemic has reminded me of the physician-patient relationship’s precious nature]( “How is she? What happened?” – a family member asks me anxiously over the phone. I pause and proceed cautiously. “What is your understanding – “ I am cut off. “Just tell me what happened.” Again, I pause. “I am very sorry sir, and I am sad to say that your wife has unfortunately passed […] [Nursing home workers at catastrophic levels of burnout and trauma]( It’s been almost a year since nursing home workers began fighting on the front lines of COVID-19. They’ve witnessed and experienced extreme trauma. They’ve seen seniors they care for suffer in fear and loneliness during prolonged and repeated lockdowns. They’ve seen residents fall catastrophically ill and too many of them die. More than 17,000 seniors are […] [How COVID-19 strained the relationship between patients and health care workers]( At its core, medicine is about a relationship between patients and health care workers. This bond between the sick and those who care for them transcends conventional boundaries and restrictions. Health care workers often witness the most profoundly intimate moments of complete strangers’ lives. We see patients in their most raw and vulnerable states. Patients, […] [How I lost sight of my own health care while creating a women’s health care company]( 2020 is the year that brought many of us to our knees. The COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the entire world, leading to death, job loss, isolation, fear, and stress. Children were all of a sudden learning from home. Women were leaving the workplace. Stay at home orders were in place. Preventative health care was prevented. Everything […] [Nephrology and kidney care during the pandemic [PODCAST]]( “COVID-19 wreaks havoc on multiple areas of the body, and myself and my fellow frontline workers across the globe have been forced to quickly identify what tools work best in our quest to keep our patients alive. While we’re working to identify which technologies can improve our patients’ outcomes, it’s encouraging that policy work is […] --------------------------------------------------------------- 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](