KevinMD Plus: Mar 30, 2019
10 things I’ve learned 10 years after I finished medical school
1. Our health care system is broken, and there isn’t going to be an easy way out. Costs are too high and our outcomes too poor. There’s a lot of finger-pointing in how we got to this point, but one thing is for certain — physicians must lead the way to a better system. The heart […]
Doctors: First, do no harm to yourself
There’s this prevailing theme in modern medicine that I don’t understand. It’s called: “Do no harm to others, but neglect yourself.” It’s perpetuated by ridiculous working hours, emotional, psychological and sometimes physical stress, minimal vacation and maximum pressure to always do a little more. Did you overwork yourself as an undergrad, watch your hair fall […]
How this physician paid off $100,000 in debt in 6 months
First of all, I am far from a financial genius. I am also not a natural saver. Thanks to scholarships and jobs, I made it out of college without loans. But, I took out a $191K for medical school. In the middle of med school, I took a year off to teach. During that year, […]
A physician’s first financial advisor
I usually simplify things here on the blog. Sometimes it is easier to glaze over a part of the story instead of pulling out all the details. Others, the point is clearer when not bogged down by tangentially related details. What’s lost in nuance, however, often adds shades of complexity to the picture. Occasionally another […]
Work-life balance doesn’t have to be a myth
Believe it or not, the topic of work-life balance can be quite controversial. It’s a concept that can seem almost impossible to attain, so some people regard it as a myth: “a pie in the sky” idea of sorts. As surprising as it seems, work-life balance is very much attainable, and my personal experience is […]
Women aren’t to blame because the workplace isn’t accommodating
A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine explored the gender roles of career-oriented academic MDs in the workplace juxtaposed with domestic responsibilities. Dr. Jolly and colleagues hypothesized that by examining a specific cohort of younger physicians, more likely exposed to dual-income households, that there would be few, if any, differences in time spent […]
Burnout in pediatric intensive care physicians
Burnout has been a descriptive term for years, but lately, psychologists and others have assigned it specific characteristics with a view toward being able actually to study and measure it. One common definition of burnout is a state of chronic stress that leads to physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, detachment, and feelings of ineffectiveness. The PICU environment […]
Chasing numbers contributes to physician burnout
A store cashier sees dozens of customers during a shift. A car tire shop mechanic may work on 20 cars. Workdays can be hard across professions. Medicine surely does not escape this. We just don’t deal with customers or goods, despite efforts to make it look like that. A simple runny nose visit may be […]
Want to change the health system? Find your why.
Can the health system survive? It comes down to the people. It is not about their work, but how they feel: feeling valued, feeling their work is valuable to those they serve, and feeling valuable doing the work. It is work as an extension of what you believe, what you love and how you want […]
A college education is money well spent
I have a few hundred thousand dollars in 529 plans. We have been growing them for years. Although not everyone’s cup of tea, this lump of money invested in this manner suggests that not only am I prepared to drop a boatload on college education, but also feel that it is cash well spent. Although […]