I risked my career to save my life

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 [eBook](. In this age of intelligent software, why is the critical test result workflow so broken? [Learn how]( closed loop reporting and communication means every test result is sent, received, and addressed in a timely manner. The involvement of large non-legacy [corporate entities in health care]( is growing and is challenging—and while this trend brings some benefits, it will also impact how all clinicians provide health care. Just published! [Youmans and Winn Neurological Surgery, 8th Edition](. Shop [Elsevier Health]( for free shipping on all newly published medical books. [The Podcast by KevinMD](. Earn 1.0 Category 1 CME for each episode! 15 minutes a day. 7 days a week. --------------------------------------------------------------- KevinMD Plus: Feb 24, 2022 [I risked my career to save my life]( Early into my military career and as an oral and maxillofacial surgery resident, I started to acknowledge the fact that, during periods of sleep deprivation that were initially inherent to my military training hours and then surgery call requirements, I found myself thinking dark thoughts that I had never experienced before. I scheduled an appointment [...] [How inflation fueled health care costs]( The 3-hour concert was over. On the way back to the car, the excitement of it all kept us singing the lyrical masterpiece. I turned on the ignition and typed in our address. “You have 1 hour and 35 minutes to go,” the GPS alerted me. I glanced at the fuel gauge. The gas floater [...] [A physician’s top 10 fears]( I recently had a good (albeit unexpected) cry and figured out that I have been in an unremitting fear cycle for about two-plus years. When the COVID pandemic first shut things down across the United States, my family and I had just started a much-anticipated ski vacation. On the way to the resort, we heard [...] [How to convert medical knowledge into digital assets that work for you [PODCAST]]( “Instead of trading up for a faster horse by drawing in the exam room, it felt like I’d just built a motor car. I created a new workflow around my digital assets. When patients checked in for a clinic visit, I scanned the chart for their visit diagnosis and fired off a content link with [...] [Changing how we think about difficult patients]( An excerpt from Changing How We Think About Difficult Patients: A Guide for Physicians and Healthcare Professionals. After I finished my residency in EM and started working as an attending physician, I realized I had a problem. I believe a lot of you have the same problem. Some of our patients are so angry, oppositional, [...] [Viral nomenclature or a sign of our times?]( As Pandora’s box of coronavirus opened in 2020, it engulfed our planet into an abysmal nightmare. As darkness fell, those of us in medicine sought refuge under a lamp called “knowledge” that sparked its flame from scientific evidence. But what if medicine and life itself were being written in real-time on a clean slate? From [...] [Are we opening everything too quickly?]( In “Open Everything” published in The Atlantic on February 9th, 2022, Yascha Mounk discusses his arguments for lifting any remaining COVID-19 restrictions to “shake off the pandemic malaise.” He asserts that we are “in danger of prolonging the status quo more than is justifiable” and that “the time to end pandemic restrictions is now.” The [...] [Who will heal the physician?]( I was a third-year medical student in 1999 when the landmark report titled “To Err is Human” was released by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), unveiling the uncomfortable truth about the fallibility of physicians and our medical system. I remember it vividly. The publication’s scandalous revelation that nearly 100,000 preventable deaths occurred in hospitals each [...] [Kissing disease’s link to multiple sclerosis]( In recent decades, mounting evidence has suggested the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a ubiquitous member of the herpes family that causes infectious mononucleosis (a.k.a. the “kissing disease”), can cause multiple sclerosis (MS). Last month, a study published in the journal Science went even further, citing EBV infection as likely the leading cause of MS. It is [...] [A milligram of understanding for the vaccine-hesitant [PODCAST]]( “The starting point is to do our best to approach discussing COVID and vaccination with the appropriate type of empathy and understanding. To understand that our patients don’t have access to the same level of data and research that we do, and even if they did, they might not understand it. To understand, they likely [...] [Nurses are in need of racial healing]( In a recent survey of nurses (n=5,600), 63% of respondents reported having experienced racism in the workplace. These racist acts were mainly done by peers (66%) or a manager or supervisor (60%). Such widespread racism should send shockwaves throughout a profession known for its caring and compassion. These findings outlined in a report from the [...] [Balancing care during COVID]( I started this commentary when the initial COVID spike involving the mass hospitalization of unvaccinated individuals occurred, and non-COVID patients requiring hospitalization were turned away because no beds, especially in intensive care, were available. Some patients traveled hours to find vacant beds, and a few even died! I put the draft aside as COVID declined [...] [Keep healthy boundaries and not define yourself by your profession]( The COVID-19 pandemic helped bring out people’s true colors. After two years of the unrelenting pressures of the pandemic, people’s true colors came out, and I will have a frank about this truth. As physicians, we often put our patient’s comfort before ours, but at what point does one have to stop and reflect on [...] [Medication management and how consultant pharmacists can help]( Management of medications is sometimes handled sub-optimally, at least in the United States. At the extreme, physicians who prescribe multiple medications prescribe some medications that treat the side effects of other medications. This could be considered physician negligence in extreme cases. An example was given in a class I took at UCSF (the University of [...] [COVID-19 and a call for unity]( It’s 2022. COVID-19 is still here, and there is little evidence that it’s going away. Coronaviruses have been here longer than us and will be here after us. For centuries, we have co-existed with viruses, and our God-given immune systems have evolved, perfecting our macrophages which fight the nasty microbes. Cytokines or killer chemicals usually [...] [I am an ICU nurse. We are drowning. [PODCAST]]( “Tears and sweat drown my face as I try to rip off my PPE and exit the room. I didn’t want to leave him, but I couldn’t bear another second in that reality. A whirlwind of emotions crash over me, and my knees weaken. I thought, “If I can just get this gown and mask [...] --------------------------------------------------------------- [Thousands of physicians are browsing this job board](. 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