When I made the choice to be a doctor at a medical school I wasn’t sure exactly what ramifications (beside teaching the next generations of doctors) my job would have. It became clear to me after a year that being an academic afforded me many privileges: of course, mentoring and teaching relationships, but also the [...]
8Aug10
Doctors & Advocacy
7 Comments
Posted in advocacy, health care reform, health disparities, medical education
Tagged essays
Tagged essays
21Jul10
United Nations of Medicine
Recently, I had the opportunity to decamp from the the friendly confines of GlassHospital and trek a few miles to the north. GlassHospital has brokered a teaching and patient-sharing agreement with a nearby religiously-affiliated community hospital I’ll call Our Lady of Blessed Proximity. Our Lady has a residency training program, just like ours, with the major difference [...]
4 Comments
Posted in hospital care, medical education
Tagged community hospitals, international medical graduates, peace
Tagged community hospitals, international medical graduates, peace
20Jun10
Finding Empathy
Most people enter the healing arts with a genuine desire to serve others. The long educational journey and the realities of both the workaday world and the various business models of health care often strain our abilities to act in an empathic manner. We have to pay the bills, after all. “No money, no mission,” [...]
5 Comments
Posted in hospital care, medical education, patient experience
Tagged empathy, finding meaning in medicine, values
Tagged empathy, finding meaning in medicine, values
23May10
The Magic Curtain
After the first day of medical school, my mother called to ask me how it went. Then she threw in a kicker: “I have a small rash I want you to look at.” What the heck did she think I learned in one day? I now know is that she was giving me an early [...]
