Top 5 reasons why doctors lack confidence

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Case Study: Learn how the Hospital for Special Surgery manages over 10 critical alarms for [faster and improved response times](. --------------------------------------------------------------- KevinMD Today: May. 1, 2017 [Top 5 reasons why doctors lack self-confidence. And how to fix it.]( In the podcast below I interview a dear friend and therapist, Sydney Ashland, who shares the top 10 fears that hold doctors back. What prevents us from being the doctors we always imagined? We enter medicine as inspired, intelligent and compassionate humanitarians. Soon, we’re cynical and exhausted. How did all these totally amazing and high-functioning […] [“I hate myself. I don’t deserve to be a doctor.”]( Dear Dr. Wible, We’ve talked before. To catch you up, I’m in my clinical years now and I keep waiting to feel the same starry-eyed excitement I felt during the first months of med school, when I thought that becoming a doctor would finally give me a tangible purpose and make me a better person […] [If she gets pregnant, she might die. Do I help?]( When I started out in practice, I worked at one of the few hospitals in the area that accepted Jehovah Witness patients. Their beliefs prohibit them from accepting blood transfusions or blood products. Many hospitals are concerned about the liability of allowing a patient who refuses necessary blood products to die. For this reason, these […] [The dangers of being overly apologetic]( “Sorry, excuse me, can I get through please?” I wiggled my way to the head of the bed. Quickly, I set up the necessary intubation tools as the patient arrives shortly thereafter. A frenzy ensues, tubes flying over the patient, people talking over each other. “Can you draw me up some RSI meds? Let’s get […] --------------------------------------------------------------- [Physician keynote speaker](. "World class! Anytime a presentation keeps physicians of all ages and specialties both engaged and entertained, you know it is something special." [A KevinMD keynote will make your next event memorable](. --------------------------------------------------------------- [The hardest thing to do as a physician]( I’ve been told that one of the hardest things that a physician endures is the passing of her first patient. However, what I imagine to be even more challenging than this is pronouncing the death to the patient’s family for the first time. Although I find myself in a similarly intimidating and burdensome position of […] [Note to Congress: It’s your fault there’s a physician shortage]( When you go to the internet or phone book today, there are hundreds of physicians listed in most urban areas. In the next two decades, you can expect more difficulty finding a physician in your hometown — a major physician shortage is looming. In the last year, I have noted many mid-career physicians are leaving […] [Doctors need to become informed physician investors]( D.J. is a 55 year-old woman with recently diagnosed early-stage left-sided breast cancer. She just had a lumpectomy to remove the tumor, and now has to decide whether to undergo chemotherapy after surgery. Her oncologist carefully discusses the clinical and pathologic data about her tumor, in terms D.J. can understand. She discusses the risks, benefits, […] [Chewing gum to detect cancer? Not so fast.]( Sometimes It’s important to know the news behind the news: the comments and the cautions that don’t get into the article that the public gets to read. It’s the sort of thing that keeps me up at night: trying to convey the reality, while realizing what most people want to hear is the hope. That’s […] [5 things I learned while having 3 kids during medical school]( During medical school, I made it a goal to graduate with a degree in one hand and a baby in another. I had a supportive husband, so we started trying to conceive when I was in my third year of medical school. We didn’t get pregnant as quickly as I thought, and we almost gave […] [Face it, doctors are bad leaders]( As physicians, we are seen as leaders whether we like it or not. And as such, we are charged with modeling greatness. But do we? Our training, while teaching us to be experts and authorities, does not teach us how to be leaders. However, somehow we get out into practice and are automatically seen as […] [How a cancer patient impacted her oncologist]( The day after I told Nell she had seven metastases to her brain, she sent me flowers. She was my patient; I was her oncologist. I had met her one year prior, when she was well into her cancer journey, stage IV breast cancer at diagnosis. I took over from her current oncologist, who was […] [Sometimes, being a doctor is magical]( There are parts of medicine that are horrendous. Moments too painful to recount, and events that will break even the most innocent participants. And then, there is unspeakable magic. I live for the days when a patient comes to the office with a particularly vexing set of symptoms. Specialist after specialist bows their head in […] [What medical school fails to teach]( This May, I will graduate from medical school. I will also be part of the first group of medical students to graduate from its new Literature and Medicine track. To me and the other participants, this has been one of the most important components of our medical education. In many ways, it has kept us […] [Are patients with minor ailments visiting the doctor too often?]( A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com. Lately, I’ve been asking myself whether today’s patient is less able to self-manage minor illnesses than their parents or grandparents. That question was inspired by my review of notes from my patients’ visits with my nurse practitioners or to our after-hours clinic, as […] [I doubt this patient’s other doctors listen]( The patient, I surmised, was the one in the wheelchair with nasal oxygen and an unhealthy red color of her cheeks. The younger woman in the room with her looked like she might be a daughter. I introduced myself. I had been right about the other woman being her daughter. It was Saturday clinic, urgent […] [Narrow networks have no connection to quality or value]( We are neurosurgeons, albeit not rocket scientists, but with our insider knowledge, it should be easy for us to understand “narrow networks.” Unfortunately, this is not the case so we can imagine how difficult it is for our patients. Consider the following scenario: A 52-year-old woman is receiving long-term care for multiple myeloma primarily involving […] [Doctors have First Amendment rights too]( Free speech is one of our bedrock constitutional rights. The battle over what constitutes lawful free speech is ongoing. But the issue is more complex than I can grasp with legal distinctions separating political speech, commercial speech and noncommercial speech. And, of course, the right of speech does not permit the free expression of obscenity […] [You think the patient is difficult? Maybe it’s you.]( I have come to believe that humility is an essential component of wisdom. Never have I found this truer than in the practice of medicine. In fact, for almost every atrocious professional error in judgment I have made, I can pinpoint the exact moment where I stopped being humble. Yet time and time again, humility […] [MKSAP: 29-year-old woman with nodules over her lower extremities]( Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 29-year-old woman is evaluated for a 5-day history of nodules over her lower extremities. She reports that she regularly visits a local spa that uses whirlpool footbaths during her pedicure procedures; she always shaves her legs with a razor before […] [Trust your instincts, but verify them]( Making a diagnosis is one of my most common challenges. Families and patients are understandably more interested in the therapy to alleviate illness and suffering than exact diagnosis. We are swept along with this laudable therapeutic objective in the current of prompt empiric therapy bringing relief and hopefully confirming an empiric diagnosis and buying time […] [Beware of worthless procedures and epidural steroids for your back pain]( An excerpt from Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery. Near my office, there’s a breakfast-and-lunch joint where strangers sit down at shared tables. When Joseph, an attorney in his early seventies, heard that I was writing a book about the back pain industry, he started asking questions. That afternoon, […] [Telemedicine: A cure for physician burnout?]( At the end of my daughter’s first week of preschool, she came home with a burning question: “Mom, my friend at school says that she has two days in a row when she and her mommy and daddy are all home at the same time. They call it a weekend. Will we ever have a […] [A patient thought she knew who the real doctor was. She was wrong.]( The setting: an inpatient unit in the Bronx, circa 2005. I was a resident (and hence was likely disheveled, groggy or exhibiting some other outward display of exhaustion) of the internal medicine program at Albert Einstein University Medical Center/Moses Division, aka Montefiore. The fact that the program was considered “malignant” by those in my industry […] --------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the KevinMD e-newsletter. If a friend sent you this email and you want to subscribe, go to [KevinMD](. --------------------------------------------------------------- 173 Daniel Webster Highway Nashua, New Hampshire 03062 [Unsubscribe]( | [Change Subscriber Options](