Latest Journal Posts
Paws and Effect: Navigating Unexpected Life Changes
Four weeks ago I ended my doggie rehome experiment.
Like many experiments, things didn’t go as planned, but I did learn some important lessons/information. I started the experiment with the hypothesis that I would do better with a grown dog than with another puppy. I did not have puppy problems, but there were significant other ones.
Paging Dr. Quitter: Sometimes Walking Away Is the Best Medicine
Physicians know how to persevere. We are committed and hardworking. We went through many years of advanced schooling and training, which would not have been possible without perseverance. We are used to enduring physical, mental, and even spiritual hardship.
But this admirable trait can lead to trouble. Sometimes we don’t know when to quit. We associate quitting with giving up or failure, two ideas that are foreign to our identity. But quitting, defined as “to stop doing something or leave a job or a place, " is not always negative.
Backup Plans and Bathroom Windows: A Doctor's Guide to Asking for Help
The pattern starts early. On my very first night of Orthopedic call as an intern, my upper-level resident told me to call him for anything, but “...remember, it’s a sign of weakness”. Ah, the mixed (or not so mixed) messages of training. Do it perfectly every time and don’t require any help.
Beyond Medicine: The Healing Power of Perspective in Patient Care
Recently, I read a post by another physician online about an experience he had decades ago, soon after he first became an attending in the ER. The experience still troubled him significantly.
The anecdote was one of so many in a long career on the front lines of healthcare, where life and death are often part of the daily events, amidst the otherwise mundane and ordinary.
People Don’t Walk on Their X-rays
In my residency program, post-op X-rays were often used to evaluate the care delivered to patients. Decision-making, procedural, and surgical abilities were judged based on the accuracy of reduction and fixation.
When care happened at night, this assessment was done the following morning, usually by others who were home sleeping in the middle of the night.
Playing Your Own Game: Lessons from 'Miracle' for Life and Success
One of my favorite movies, and I have A LOT of them that I watch over and over again, is Miracle. This is an account of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team, comprised of amateurs, that managed to defeat the significantly more experienced and dominant Russian team. (This was way back when before the modern “dream teams” that play now.)
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