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A Meth Lab, The ER, Judgment And Grace

Last week a trailer less than a mile from our house experienced a small explosion. Trailers, which seldom explode on their own (without undiscovered volcanoes or CIA drones with missiles) was concealing a meth lab.

What can you say? If I weren’t an emergency physician I’d say, “Shocking! Ghastly! Unbelievable!” But I do what I do so I say, “Huh, how about that.”

I’ve lost much of my capacity to be shocked. I have seen meth users, and probably meth dealers. I’ve known and enjoyed the company of alcoholics and Valium addicts. I’ve cared for murderers and the murdered (albeit briefly in the case of the latter). I’ve been involved in the evaluation of sexual assault victims, car thieves, drunk drivers and child abusers. A meth lab is, in its own way, kind of small stuff.

What does it say about me? I don’t know. It may suggest that I’m cynical. Or it may mean that I’m cold. Or it may mean, as I suspect it does, that I’m just realistic. I know the world is full of drugs and brokenness. The ER, where I work, is just the place where all of it arrives in its fermented, fully concentrated, “contents under pressure” form. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*

A Little Old Lady’s Power In The ER

Here’s my column in the August edition of Emergency Medicine News. A person who seems powerless may hold an entire emergency room hostage!

Magic Words: ‘I Have Chest Pain’

Propped in her bed, frail and weak, the little grandma sighed. Her complaints were legion: weakness, poor appetite, poor sleep, joint pain, cough, dry mouth. Her daughter, eyes rolling, was trying to balance three reasonable emotions. She desperately wanted to go home and rest after spending the day in the ER. She truly wanted to avoid her mother’s admission to the hospital, and she was, graciously, sympathetic to the physician who brought the bad news.

‘Mrs. Adkins, I know you feel poorly, and I’m sorry. But I have to say, I can’t find any reason to admit you to the hospital. You’re right as rain. Isn’t that great?’

‘You mean, I’ve been here all this time, and had a gallon of blood drawn, and all them x-rays and a CAT scan, and there ain’t nothing wrong? I can’t believe that. I feel terrible.’ When she said the word terrible, she smacked her lips and looked away. She propped her hands on her lap and intertwined them; and she managed a subtle, but expressive, sniffle. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*

“Fair Pay” For Doctors, Too?

This is my column in [the August 3rd] Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis recently produced an interesting public service announcement. In it, she stated that every worker deserves to be paid fairly for his or her labor (whether the worker is documented or not), and offered both a website and telephone hot-line which workers could use to report unfair payment by employers. (Incidentally, here’s the link: www.dol.gov/wecanhelp.) In the video, she stated succinctly, “You work hard, and you deserve to be paid fairly.”

Those of us who practice medicine completely agree. So we might reasonably ask if this announcement also applies to physicians who are undercompensated for their work. This routinely happens when patients are covered by Medicare and Medicaid, or by large insurance companies like Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which routinely negotiate unfair physician fees using their collective weight in bargaining. (Even as their executives bring home tidy bonuses that are clearly padded by denials). Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*

Is That ER Doctor Packin’ A Smartphone Or A Revolver?

I have a new “smartphone.” It’s a Droid from Verizon. Pretty cool. I like what it can do, though it tends to enable me tendency to chronically check my email. I like the features, between ease of texting, voice dialing, etc.  But it’s big, compared to me dear departed flipphone, whose corpse lies in state in my pickup truck.

But I noticed one day, as I reached around my side, that the large phone now on my hip felt remarkably like my revolver. Odd feeling that. I was in public and I remember panicking, wondering if I had forgotten to conceal my concealed weapon for some reason.

And as I pondered this, I realized that both represent fundamental differences in the way we view individuality. Maybe it’s a stretch, but I’m a writer so I’m supposed to stretch. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*

The Beauty Of Life And Death, Too Easily Forgotten

Yesterday I had a university student shadowing me in the emergency department. AF is a bright student, a hard worker who will make a wonderful physician. She is always curious and insightful when I ask her questions, or show her new things. Today,  she saw something that was new for her, but perhaps too common for me.

I walked into the room of an infirm, frail old gentleman who was gracious and polite, as was his family. It turns out he came to us with a terminal illness. I did not know it, but his physician was meeting him. So, as AF and I walked into the room, the patient’s physician walked in after us, and continued a conversation about hospice that he had apparently begun earlier in the day.

Realizing I had nothing to add, and would not be needed, I slipped away with my shadow behind. She looked at me, tears welling, and excused herself. Later she returned and explained that when she saw the wife’s wedding band, and knew what hospice meant, she could not restrain her tears. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*

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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