Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Uncategorized”
When I started this blog, I was all over the FIRE bandwagon. I felt trapped by medicine, and was looking to load up, cash out and exit as quickly as was financially feasible. Something happened along the way to the early retirement component. Cutting back on my clinical time transformed medicine from a vindictive and jealous ex-mistress whose only objective …
The ED can be a challenging place to work. Patients are anxious, injured, in pain, and may have unrealistic expectations of the services we provide. A smaller number of patients are also drunk, high, or acutely psychotic. Captains of industry feel suddenly powerless to control their circumstances. Said captains are unaccustomed to the symphony that arises when one is situated …
For those in need of a family diversion, may I suggest the following: Take a blank sheet of paper and scribble about a dozen simple forms on it. Make a copy (by hand or with a printer) for each member of the household. This activity requires each person to have access to a digital device that can take photos. Assign …
Yesterday I had three end of life conversation in a single shift in the Emergency Department. I was in the “hot zone,” caring for suspected COVID patients, and all discussions involved goals of care for seniors in their late 70s, 80s and 90s. At the ripe age of 47, those in their 70s (my parents’ generation) do not seem as …
Raising a preadolescent is a novel experience for me. Lots of labile feelings that must-be-released-right-NOW! Heretofore unseen levels of resistance over what were previously accepted responsibilities and conventions: Doing dishes. Maintaining hygiene. Not leaving wet towels on the floor of one’s room. My wife likes to joke that her departed grandmother always had a knack for asking the most sensitive …
A Romeo Among Swordsmen I was a weird kid in my middle school years. I didn’t fit neatly into any cookie cutter categories. I played Dungeons and Dragons with smart, socially awkward boys in the 6th grade. Boys with pallor that stood out among southern California tan. Boys who read incredibly thick fantasy books and practiced speaking Elvish to one …
Disclosure: I am an affiliate, and make a modest commission when readers purchase the Pandemic Survival Guide for Physicians using my link. Dike Drummond, a.k.a. The Happy MD, is a Mayo-trained family physician whose personal struggle with burnout led him to leave clinical medicine in 2011 and instead pursue physician coaching and burnout prevention as his full-time vocation. Let’s go …
At this moment in history, where many assumptions I’d made about reality are being rapidly discarded, it’s valuable to identify those few constants to keep me tethered (however tenuously) to the world. The regional pillars of my world come down to two individuals and one species. Shirtless Keith I didn’t know it at the time we bought our home, but …
Cory Fawcett recently wrote a thoughtful, grounded post about his father-in-law’s death and the many logistical hurdles he and his family overcame. It’s a lot of work to bury someone with a tribute befitting a full life, especially when also attempting to honor requests from those closest to the deceased. One of the details Cory described struck a chord with …
I wrote recently of intubating my first suspected COVID patient. It made me feel like a huge liability to my family. We know that persons infected with COVID can remain asymptomatic for days after exposure, and that they can transmit disease during this period. One of the few characteristics I am grateful for is that so far children do not …