Tag: awareness
-
“The Way the System Is Going, I Didn’t See Any Other Solution Legally Available To Us.”
The quote in the headline is from Dr. John Wust, an obsetrician at Allina Health who voted with his colleagues to unionize in March 2023. Read the full article from Noam Scheiber of The New York Times here. When doctors are resorting to unionization, you know things are bad. At the time I was terminated…
-
Big Box Medical Fails to Match Patients with Their Ideal Doctors (and Vice Versa)
A profound lack of choice within Big Box Medical creates a matching problem that leads to dissatisfaction and disillusionment on both sides of the equation. Patients typically don’t get much choice over what doctor they see, especially if they want to in their medical insurer’s “network” to make the service at least remotely affordable. Doctors,…
-
How Much Does This Cost?
When you’re a consumer, “How much does this cost?” should be a simple question with a simple answer. Inside Big Box Medicine, however, it rarely is. Why? Come on. They don’t want you to see those prices. And, who cares, right? Your health insurance will take care of it! Ha… I’m showing a bill from…
-
Terminated Without Cause, Effective Immediately
Today is about amplifying someone else’s story. By reading Ashley Saucier, MD, MHA, FACEP, FAAP’s abrupt termination story, I hope others can learn, gain awareness and empathy, and start thinking about what they can do to make themselves more prepared to weather a storm like this if it happens. If something like this has happened to…
-
So You’ve Been (Abruptly) Terminated…
I discussed, among other things, my without cause, abrupt termination by my employer on the October 28, 2023 episode of The Podcast by KevinMD. I’m grateful to Kim Downey, a fierce advocate for physicians, and Kevin Pho, M.D., for facilitating this important conversation and helping bring it to a larger audience. Doctors need to know their jobs…
-
The Steroid Dose Pack: A Blessing And A Curse
As of this writing, I’m post-op day #1 status-post nasal septoplasty with bilateral turbinate reduction and nasal valve repair (yikes, writing that reminded me of those 4am surgery intern days…). Part of my post-op medication regimen is a methylprednisolone dose pack. This is a commonly prescribed systemic corticosteroid that has easy instructions for how to…
-
When Creams and Ointment Aren’t Cutting It: Dupilumab For Atopic Dermatitis
October is Eczema Awareness Month, so let’s keep talking eczema. Last Monday, I talked about the itch that unites all forms of eczema that can be so debilitating and crazy-making. I’ve cared for enough patient with eczema to know that itch should be classified as a type of pain. And many frustrated sufferers aren’t getting…
-
Functional Medicine As Systems Medicine
Per the The Institute for Functional Medicine: “Functional medicine is a systems biology–based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease. Each symptom or differential diagnosis may be one of many contributing to an individual’s illness. A diagnosis can be the result of more than one cause. For example, depression can be…
-
The (He)art Of Active Listening
It’s a bit ironic that I’m writing about this in the parking lot before my twice monthly Toastmasters meeting (shout out Wausau chapter 782), but it makes sense to me. I had the pleasure of touring around San Francisco recently with my then 3-year-old son. What a magical and memorable time. I snapped this photo while we…
-
The Itch Is A Bit@h!
Pardon my language, but October is Eczema Awareness Month, and we need to talk about itch. Dermatologists sometimes call it pruritus, but you know it as itch or itching, and it can be crazy-making. We wax poetic about what “type” of itch it is and what treatments may or may not help based on the…
