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Kansas Hospital Uses Interesting Tactic To Recruit Physicians To Its Rural Area

A rural hospital on the verge of closing because of problems retaining its rotating door of physicians offered two months of leave for missionary work to keep a more stable roster. It worked, according to a profile written by the Associated Press.

All employees at Ashland Health Center in Kansas, from maintenance staff to the doctors, get two months off to do missionary work in other countries or other volunteering duties for the community. The move has attracted socially minded physicians and their families, many of whom had backgrounds in missionary work already and wanted an environment to keep doing it. The recruitment was developed with support of the Via Christi medical residency program in Wichita, which is sponsored in turn by the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

It’s not the only effort underway in Kansas. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*

Survey Reveals Just How Stressed Physicians Really Are

The vast majority of U.S. physicians are moderately to severely stressed or burned out on an average day, with moderate to dramatic increases in the past three years, according to a survey.

Almost 87% of all respondents reported being moderately to severely stressed and/or burned out on an average day using a 10-point Likert scale, and 37.7% specifying severe stress and/or burnout.

Almost 63% of respondents said they were more stressed and/or burned out than three years ago, using a 5-point Likert scale, compared with just 37.1% who reported feeling the same level of stress. The largest number of respondents (34.3%) identified themselves as “much more stressed” than they were three years ago.

The survey of physicians conducted by Physician Wellness Services, a company specializing in employee assistance and intervention services, and Cejka Search, a recruitment firm, was conducted across the U.S., and across all specialties, in September 2011. Respondents Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*

Researchers Hope To Find Solution To Our Tendency To Overeat

A simple optical illusion might encourage better eating habits, researchers found.

The Delboeuf illusion makes equal size circles appear to be different sizes by surrounding them with larger or smaller concentric rings. Applied to eating, smaller plates make the food servings appear larger.

One problem is that the size of commercially available dinnerware has increased from 9.6 inches to 11.8 inches in the past century. Eating only 50 calories a day more as a result equals enough calories to add five pounds of weight annually.

Practical implications of the research include encouraging people to replace larger plates and bowls with smaller ones, choose plates that contrast starkly with food, and even choose tablecloths that match their dinnerware, the researchers noted. Those with eating disorders or elderly people who need to eat more could follow the opposite advice to improve their intake.

Researchers Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

The Changing Priorities Of A New Generation Of Physicians

Doctors are, famously, workaholics. That’s just the way it’s been forever, at least as far back as my memory goes. You work crazy hours in residency, you graduate and work like a dog to establish your practice or to become a partner in your practice, and then you live out your career working long hours because there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done. I remember, growing up in the ’80s, that my friends whose parents were doctors were latchkey kids whose dad (usually the dad, then) was never at home when we were hanging out in the rec room playing Atari.

Yeah, Atari. Look it up, kids.

Not much had changed by the time I went to medical school. There was recognition of the fact that burnout was an issue — that divorces, alcohol abuse and suicides were more common among physicians than in other professions. The unspoken implication was that being a doctor was difficult and stressful, which increased the risk of these consequences of an over-burdened professional life. These stresses were accepted as part of the turf, as a necessary part of “being a doctor.” It wasn’t optional, and indeed, most physician teachers that addressed the matter chose to sublimate it into a mark of nobility. Being a physician was a calling and a duty, and a physician must gladly subordinate his or her own happiness and well-being to the service of their flock.

But things have changed, or at least a slow shift is in progress. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*

The Freshman Fifteen Fallacy: How Much Weight Do College Students Actually Gain?

Fear of the “freshman 15” weight gain is overrated, says one researcher who found that the average college student packs on only between about 2.5 and 3.5 pounds.

And it might not even be the college lifestyle that causes one’s backpack to become a little more snug. Rather, it’s part of the natural transition into adulthood. The typical freshman only gains about a half-pound more than a same-age person who didn’t go to college.

“Not only is there not a ‘freshman 15,’ there doesn’t appear to be even a ‘college 15’ for most students,” researchers said in a press release.

The researchers concluded that the myth of the freshman 15 may contribute to Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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