Reunited with My Mentor and It Feels So Good
This past week was one of those weeks looming ahead of me that I was already dreading as I entered into it. I was to be working through another holiday and following a string of nights, I would have a quick turnaround into a midshift. As a nocturnist by choice, I rarely work mornings or […]
Team Work Makes the Dream Work
I love sports analogies. I grew up playing many sports, field hockey, softball, and competitive swimming. As a physician I see so many parallels in the worlds of sports and medicine. There is so much in competition and team play that mirrors the way departments work in many sectors of medicine. Most medical departments, offices […]
When Privilege Undermines Empathy
Recently, I had my first experience serving as the supervising attending at The Sharewood Project, a free clinic that serves mostly immigrant families and those that have no insurance. In addition to medical students, we have dental residents, dermatology residents, interpreters and case workers. We come together like this once a week to give struggling […]
What Men Think: Gender Wage Gap Within Medicine
[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.0.48″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.0.74″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”] Recently a male internal medicine physician was quoted in the Dallas Medical Journal stating that the gender wage disparity in medicine is “fair” and that it exists because “female physicians do not work as hard and […]
Can You Handle “Equal” Pay
Recently, a male physician made public a common, inaccurate, and appalling opinion: Women are paid less, because they don’t want to work hard. The comment, in the September issue of the Dallas Medical Journal, asserts that women are paid less, because they see fewer patients. This is because women physicians “choose to or they simply […]
Do All Women Undergo Profession Shaming?
Come August in Florida, no one would blame you for moving to Nantucket. By this point, your “sun’s out, buns out” summer enthusiasm has suffocated. What remains is meltingly passive-aggressive commentary about Boston’s expense and uninhabitability, and the privilege of an olympic-sized pool at your back door. Both of those things are lies. Because once […]
Culture As A Vital Sign
I was a 3rd year medical student in Brooklyn, New York. As an Indian immigrant with physician parents, I had experienced various aspects of healthcare from numerous perspectives. However, growing up in rural Pennsylvania, my parents’ patient population was much different than my clerkship experiences in Brooklyn. The racial, cultural and linguistic diversity was welcoming. […]
A Doctor’s Take on The Handmaid’s Tale
Spoiler alert! I recently started watching Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale after continuing to hear rave reviews about the show. It is based on the dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood. I just started watching this weekend and am now caught up to season 2; it’s that good. It portrays a world in which fertility and birth […]
Burnout or Just Burned?
When you envision the classic American TV doctor from yesteryear, what do you see? An older man, with silver gray hair, dark suit, white coat and doctor’s bag right? He was a solo practitioner who worked long hours, made house calls, neglected his home life and garnered respect by the entire community. Popular culture today […]
When Health and Politics Collide: A Child in the ER Whose Only Symptom is Fear
It’s a Sunday evening in a local South Texas Emergency Room with the expected normal ER traffic for a weekend evening. Lots of simple traumas for a weekend: ankle sprains, abrasions, lacerations, simple falls as well as common URI (upper respiratory infection) symptoms and fevers. EMS radios in with a call of a five-year-old male […]
