Medicine Blog Posts

When a process is being conducted in bad faith, the protections intended to encourage honest peer review can become shields for dishonest peer review. By the time a physician proves the allegations were misleading, exaggerated, or entirely false, the damage is already done. Privileges have been suspended, employment has been terminated, reports have been made to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), and, in some cases, reputations have been completely destroyed.

Frances Mei has what can only be described as the personality and responsibilities of a successful 1950s professional man. If we are searching for a physician who has been freed from many of the traditional expectations placed upon women, she is a remarkably clean test case. And yet the outcomes are not what the traditional narrative, that this is a meritocracy, would predict.

I am starting to understand, not just the benefit but the necessity to stop evaluating every activity according to its usefulness. We became so accustomed to asking what something would produce that we forgot there are experiences whose value lies entirely in the fact that they produce nothing at all.

If you are curious about graphic medicine, this will be a front row seat. If you are an artist, a writer, or a healthcare worker who has ever thought about telling medical stories through comics, I hope this will make the process feel a little less mysterious. And if you simply enjoy stories about the strange human drama that unfolds in exam rooms every day, you will probably find something interesting here too.

When I was in training, I wish I’d had a resource outlining the harms of sleep deprivation. Here is a detailed summary, formatted as a letter, that can be presented to program leadership.

Once I’d sent an email advocating for myself in the wake of extreme sleep deprivation on home call, I began having conversations with other fellows and early-career faculty members who trained at our institution. Did they have the same experience of severe sleep deprivation on home call that I experienced?

"The ACGME says home call “must not be so frequent as to preclude rest,” and I believe this week the volume of calls has truly precluded rest."

And yet, The Knowledge endures, diminished perhaps, pressured by economics and technology, but still alive. Its persistence raises a deeper question, one that increasingly applies to medicine: Why do humans still pursue mastery when convenience is everywhere?

“To the best of their ability” means, because they are human, that they will make mistakes. In our profession, when we make mistakes, someone gets hurt. In other professions, failure is necessary for growth. 

As pediatrician Dr. Harvey Karp explains, fast-food restaurants actually model one communication skill remarkably well: when you place your order, the cashier repeats it back to you. They do this because clarity and confirmation matter. And, importantly, the hungriest person—the customer—always speaks first.

Being on call for Thanksgiving is hard in a way that’s difficult to explain unless you’ve lived it.

Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS) combines the art of dentistry with bony reconstruction and soft tissue management. The bread and butter of OMFS - dentoalveolar - entails implant placement, preprosthetic surgery, extractions and orthognathic surgery.

The question isn’t how to eliminate conflict. The question is how to relate to one another with integrity while maintaining healthy boundaries and a willingness to engage in necessary, honest conversation.

Transparency isn’t just about sharing test results or surgical details—it’s about being accessible, accountable, and human. Giving my email address is one small way to prove that the door is always open.

Regardless of your specialty, you’ll face moments like this—moments when you must act outside your comfort zone. These moments don’t just challenge your clinical skills; they challenge your self-concept.

When we normalize working at 75%, we model a sustainable profession for the next generation. We create accurate data about what is truly possible. We invite creativity into spaces long held hostage by exhaustion.

We take an oath to first, do no harm. But the harsh truth is: we will all harm patients. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

In this powerful and heartfelt keynote, Dr. Lauren Umstattd addresses the graduating class of 2025 at the University of Missouri School of Medicine.

Unless significant changes are made, this bill will do nothing short of devastate our already fragile healthcare system. If you work in the healthcare industry like me and, also like me, are busy with the day to day work of patient care and don't have time to read legalese for hours, I will offer you a brief summary.

Reflecting on motherhood, burnout, and how empathy - not capes - is the true superpower in medicine.