Sneezing, coughing, itchy eyes! Oh my!

It’s that time of year. In my practice, I am seeing more children and adults with sneezing, puffy eyes, itchy eyes, forehead headaches, you name it. Look outside and the reason is clear, our region is plagued by significant amounts of tree and plant pollen and flowers and trees are blooming. The pollen blankets our sidewalks, cars, and homes with fine, green powder that causes a range of allergic symptoms.

My son and I have horrible seasonal allergies. I get runny eyes and sinus headaches (the pressure above my eyes, across my forehead, and next to my nose) and he gets puffy and itchy eyes, sneezing, coughing, and asthma flares.

Here are the basics that we use to keep things under control:

-       Avoid indoor allergens by vacuuming and dusting regularly.

-       Avoid strong smells indoors such as bleach and air freshener plug-ins and instead try fragrance-free cleaners and a few drops of essential oils mixed with water. 

-       Let kids play outside as much as possible but pay attention to the Air Quality Index on the news. After playing outside, have kids wash their hands and face to rinse off the pollen.

-       Rinse your sinuses with saline (special salt) water to get rid of all of the pollen. You can buy a sinus rinse bottle or neti-pot for less than $15. When you are having a lot of symptoms use it two times a day, once in the morning and once at night. When things are going well, just use it once a day at night before bed. Sometimes my patients do not even need other medicines when they rinse their sinuses out regularly.

-       If needed, talk to your doctor about fluticasone nose spray or antihistamines that don’t cause sleepiness such as cetirizine (Zyrtex) or loratadine (Claritin).

-       Avoid using antihistamines that cause sleepiness such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl) too often unless prescribed by a doctor.

With these few tips, I hope that you can avoid sneezing, coughing, and itchy eyes.

For more information, check out a short article: https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/seasonal-allergies.html

Originally posted at: https://www.healthyhomepediatrics.com/blog

My ideal medical practice - I opened up shop!

House call doctor tools of the trade. I have since gotten another rolling bag.

Over the last few years I have slowly been inching toward establishing my own practice. And this January, I did it, I incorporated my practice, Healthy Home Pediatrics! It is a house call based concierge, or direct primary care, practice serving Washington, DC and the surrounding Maryland and Virginia areas.

In my first blog post as a new business owner, I wrote:

It feels so good to work hard for my own vision. For the last 5 years I have worked extremely hard for visions that were established by hospital administrators or the organizations that I worked for. Too often, these visions fell short of what I knew my colleagues and I were truly capable of and far short of what patients really wanted and needed.

During times like this, when I am venturing into the unknown, I often go back to one of my all time favorite books, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. I have read this book countless times. In it, Coelho shares the story of a young shepherd boy who leaves home and goes in search of his dreams. Along the way he is tested and experiences both profound joy and deep disappointments. One of my favorite sections of the book shares a conversation with the boy, his heart, and the alchemist:

“People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.”

“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

“Every second of the search is an encounter with God,” the boy told his heart. “When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I’ve known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve.”

This is my dream. To practice medicine in the way that feels good to my heart, in a way that I know will help families and my community. To be unhindered by traditional systems such as hospital systems and clinic administrators. To collaborate directly with my patients and their families. To build sustainable relationships with families that help prevent disease and suffering. To be there for my patients when they need me.

Many thanks to KC and others for encouraging me and supporting me. A gentle nudge from her is what prompted this post. Even though it is scary, sharing such a personal detailed account on MiM, I want to share this new phase of my life because I have already received countless messages from colleagues, friends and family saying how much my business has inspired them to pursue their own dreams. I want to take you all on this new path with me. Let me know if there are particular topics about entrepreneurship and balancing work and life that you would like me to write about.

Thanks Mothers in Medicine for inspiring me!

Please follow my journey on social media:

https://www.facebook.com/pedsdrj

https://www.instagram.com/pedsdrj/

https://twitter.com/pedsdrj

Are You Suffering from Overcare?

Dear MiM,

This is my first post, so I will introduce myself. Thank you so much to KC and all of you veteran MiMs for this opportunity. I've been a reader for years, since residency, and found MiM so helpful when thinking about my future career. I'm a family physician in a mid-sized Canadian city. I've been in practice for seven years, which still feels very "early career" to me. I work full time - 35-40 hours/week counting clinical plus admin time. I call it full time but always somewhat sheepishly around other physicians! I have a three year old son and one year old daughter, and a work-from-home husband. I'm involved in refugee health work and am community faculty for our medical school. For me, some amount of "big picture" work has always helped me maintain enthusiasm and appreciation for the clinical work. I look forward to reading your stories, and sharing mine!

N.

---

A few months ago, I was getting bogged down by excessive self doubt and perfectionism at work. The main way it manifested was in ruminating and worrying over decisions once I'd made them, but there was also over-thinking clinical choices, triple- (quadruple?) checking, and asking for advice when I really didn't need to. I try to take a pretty balanced approach to life, accepting the "good enough" principle and refraining from placing unrealistic expectations on myself. But "good enough" never seems to fit with medicine. I can accept vulnerability and imperfection in other areas in my life, but medicine? There's no room for it. I think our patients and society echo this as well; after all, it's comforting to think that physicians are the ultimate authorities in health and it's disconcerting that we are inherently flawed humans. We are socialized and trained in this mindset as well. Of course, we must be conscientious physicians. I'm not talking about being sloppy or less than thorough. But, recognizing that we are human, even when we are conscientious, careful and keep our knowledge and skills up-to-date, we'll falter.

During this time, I came across an excellent article on the topic of Overcare, written by the late Dr. Lee Lipsenthal and adapted from his book "Finding Balance in a Medical Life". Overcare was a new concept for me, and a useful one. Dr. Lipsenthal talks about overcare as a chronic emotional state that physicians can get into, and it involves agonizing over decisions we have made, and at the core of it, wondering "Am I a good enough doctor?" There are several factors at play. Our personalities tend to be perfectionistic, and we do carry a lot of responsibility. He talks about our addiction to being needed and how the intermittent positive reinforcement we get from patients can lead to us doing more and more, hoping and waiting for the "reward" of a satisfied patient. The perfectionism expectation in medicine is often instilled into us during training, and also informs how we judge others; we in turn also fear being judged harshly by our colleagues. This is especially true for me as a family physician. Any time one of my patients is seen in the Emergency Room or by a specialist I've referred them to, my care will be under scrutiny. I find that Impostor Syndrome often tags along with this overcare and perfectionism. If your expectation is that a "perfect physician" is the default, yet you witness your inherently imperfect self, impostor syndrome can creep in.

How can we counter overcare? Personally, it helps to remind myself that I am competent and doing the best that I can. And that I am human. I try to consciously make a decision, and make peace with the inherent uncertainty. I ask myself a useful question from cognitive-behavioural therapy for anxiety: am I problem-solving, or worrying? If the latter, move on. Do I think about patients after hours or change my mind about decisions? Of course, but I have a better sense now of what qualifies as being conscientious, and what is actually overcare.

Do you struggle with overcare? Are there any strategies you've found helpful?

Season finale of “As the Residency Turns”

* DISCLAIMER: I meant to post this back in June as I finished residency but it got put aside as I filled out my umpteenth credentialing application. Here it is now. I wrote it 2 days before finishing my last primary care rotation of residency:

After 3 years of residency I have had some amazing interactions with patients. Amazing in the wonderful way the 9 month old whose well child checks you have always performed smiles and babbles when you walk in way and reaches out for you to hold her. Your heart opens wide, the parents are at ease and you think to yourself, “yeah, this is why I do this!” Or amazing in the way things go when a developmental delay I picked up is being addressed by Early Intervention and we can all see how the affected child is flourishing. Or when you talk that sexually active teen into being more assertive in communication with partners and you get her to get a Nexplanon.

Then I have had some intense interactions of the other kind. Intense in the I was so concerned that I called Child Protective Services and now a CPS worker is here with you and you are yelling at me and I am crying and I want to work with you so much but you hate me right now and won’t listen to anything I have to say kind of way. Intense in the way things go when a parent has what appears to be bipolar disorder and splits on providers and one minute says our hospital saved his/her child’s life and the next is cursing about how several of our providers did them wrong.

During the amazing ones, my heart soars, during the intense ones my heart plummets and I often get palpitations. I have been having a few day run of extreme highs and pitiful lows. I have 2 more days in clinic before my last day of residency at the end of June and there are so many loose ends. I realize that clinic is the only part of residency that resembles continuity; we do other rotations for a month at a time and are essentially visitors but in clinic you are like the cousin who comes home regularly for major holidays and family gatherings.  The end is in sight and I feel like I need some closure - so much so that I helped draft a letter to our patients from the graduating seniors updating our patients on where we would be going and now parents come in and say “Dr. Bee - you’re really leaving us?!?”.

There are so many amazing patients who will continue to grow and I will miss their new developments. And I have a few difficult patients who once I’m gone will literally have no one else who wants to work with them. 2 more days. What can and will I do? Why does it feel like such a huge deal? I think I’m scared and sad that things are coming to an end, it’s for the best, right? Why do I feel like a success and a failure all at the same time?

This child and his sensitive skin

It all started out as a little papule on his left buttocks. In the middle of a busy week of relatives visiting and make-up clinic days, what started out as a small papule morphed into something worse. Zo has had exceedingly sensitive skin since he was 1 years old. Hyperkeratotic plaques behind his knees that sprout up in the span of 2 days if he isn’t slathered in a thick mixture of shea butter and petroleum jelly twice a day. Diffusely itchy maculopapular rashes if we miss his nightly dose of cetirizine. That type of sensitive skin.

I thought I had things under control. But I didn’t.

Monday - I see a little papule on his left buttocks. I put on a thin layer of triamcinolone 0.025% on it. Later that night, I see a few more papules. I put him in the bathtub and then put on more triamcinolone and begin our twice a day ritual for exacerbations.

Tuesday - I see more papules. He is itchy. Is that a ring? Nahhh, I’ll just step up the emollients.

Wednesday - I return home and notice him scratching. How was swimming? His response, “it was fun” as he continues to scratch. Bathtime. Is that a 2 centimeter scaling ring-lesion?!? Oh goodness! He’s got tinea!!! I don’t have time to get clotrimazole and I forget to text my hubby what medicine to get from the pharmacy.

Thursday - satellite lesions. After clinic I run to the local CVS and wait in line for 15 minutes to purchase clotrimazole and by the time I arrive home he's asleep. That peaceful sleep where you know not to interrupt them or all hell will break loose so I let him sleep as I fret about his tinea outbreak.

Friday morning - we begin twice a day clotrimazole use.

Weekend - more lesions. Lower back, posterior and anterior thigh. Areas I won't mention for fear of him one day reading this. But seriously who knew tinea could spread so quickly and that toddlers can get jock itch! Major fail!!! Quick consult to my doctor friends with pictures of all of the lesions minus his groin. Definitely tinea. Definitely spreading; it’s all of the summer camp fun and splash park play dates. Primary care friend KJ says just go ahead and suck it up and put him on griseofulvin too, it’s already too out of hand and you'll stop it before it spreads to his scalp.

And just like that, I have written my first prescription for my son. Too ashamed and time-pressed to bring him in to my new clinic for tinea corporis. I knew the liquid wouldn’t go well as he is now 16 kilograms and our last go round with amoxicillin ended in us making daily smoothies. Based on my calculations, he could do one-half of a 500mg tablet daily - and after all of the pill swallowing for kids I observed due to an awesome program one of my co-residents did, I knew what to do.

Tuesday - I took him to the pharmacy to get him excited about his new medicine to help with his itchy parts. He shook the bottle to a nice beat and did a happy dance. We got home and I cut the pill. Hubby says “shouldn’t you crush this, it’s huge.” I say “nawww, we’ve got this.” Equipped with 1 tablespoon of honey and half of the pill, I say, “okay, you’ve got to swallow this without crunching it up.” Zo smiles, says okay and then hubby offers him some extra water and then VOILA!!! My almost four-year-old swallowed his first pill!!! Proud doctor-mommy moment in the midst of a crazy week.

Attending Status: let's go!

I woke up to the sounds of the birds chirping and then “Mommy!” as my almost 4-year old tried to start his day at 6:45am. Quick detour for a potty-break and then promptly back in his bed because, “It’s still too early. Time for sleep.”

As I sit at our desks, I double and triple check that my Epocrates app is up to date so that I can quickly calculate drug doses. Today is my first official day as an Attending. I am returning to my dream health care system to work in the pediatric clinic I did my third year community pediatrics rotations in. The Attendings and many of the front desk staff remember me back when I was a medical student and they, like me, are super happy that I have returned.

We had an all-day orientation yesterday that was truly inspirational - yes, I’ve drunk the Koolaid as they say and am already one of those super happy people to work where I work. Providing care to children in our nation’s capital is truly an honor and one that I do not take lightly.

During times like this I refer back to my favorite book The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho). I was tested immensely in these last few years, but every second of the journey brought me closer to the realization of my dream. Every struggle. Every triumph. And I’m here. In this moment. Feeling the immensity of years of pre-medical studies, MCAT struggles, public health school, medical school, biochemistry challenges, clinical year excellence, pregnancy during USMLE Step 2, birth, and being a mother in medicine.

I am totally ready for this aspect of my journey. I vow to do great things. So let’s go. Let’s get it. Pediatric Attending status 2015! (happy dance, happy dance, happy-praise dance!)

Hurtling toward the next phase

I have searched but I cannot find the flying trapeze story I read a few years ago that explains my life, so I’ll paraphrase and add to it here:

I swing back and forth preparing for my next take off. I have prepared, but I know that this leap is longer and more challenging than ever before. In spite of a long line of successful jumps, there have been some near-misses, some full on misses, some blood, scrapes and even some still healing deeper wounds. This time I jump, my husband is watching and waiting readying himself for his jump into dissertation land and as we prepare Zo waits by ready to take off with us.

Well MiM friends, it’s official, I have accepted a position as a Pediatrician in my dream clinic. I’ll be back in DC working at an academic center-affiliated community clinic. I did my community pediatrics rotation there as a medical student and so many of my respected supervisors and medical school friends are still there.

Interviews were a whirlwind. I met so many nice people, got lost countless times, learned even more about what I need, want, and will compromise on.  

And now onto school finding. Every day I have a mini-freak out when I think about Little Zo starting pre-k. Our cherubic toddler has been replaced by an almost 4 year old hilariously funny and extremely sweet rib-protruding knock-kneed ball of energy. And then I freak out more about making pick up and drop off work and I pray so intensely that we find the right environment for him and that we will find balance so I can rock my boards and O can finish his dissertation expeditiously. I wish I could transplant his daycare to DC.

And house hunting on a single income in a very tight housing market is not my favorite thing to do but I guess house hunting without the beloved Property Brothers will always be lackluster. We have several leads on promising houses and are heading up next weekend prepared to make an offer. Can’t wait to have our first home secured and then on to do-it-yourself projects for years to come.

This jump seems epic. Push-pull-push-pull, forward backward forward backward, take off.

Early Morning Musings of a Snowbound and Homebound Primary Care Physician

Genmedmom here.

Here in Boston, we've been experiencing winter weather conditions never before seen in modern times. I'm not exaggerating. A series of intense winter storms and an unusually prolonged stretch of extremely cold temperatures have combined to create a Pompeii of snow and ice, rather than ashes. The region is near-paralyzed. Frankly, I'm getting bored of writing about it.

But the fact is, weather disasters unite us, forcing us all to realize that we are weak, small, and, well, only human, compared to Mother Nature.

As a primary care doctor, this weather has also forced me to realize some humbling truths.

One: as a 100% outpatient attending, I am not an "essential worker".

Two: I can do alot of my job over the phone, safely, and with greater patient satisfaction.

For the first two of these last four major winter storms, I was home alone with my two children under five years old. It was not physically possible for me to shovel out in time for work, and I had to cancel some clinic days. For the third, my husband was home, but the weather was so bad that between us, it was still not physically possible to shovel out in time for clinic. I cancelled again. Then, as mass transit was also shut down, and most staff had no reasonable way to travel in, our office ended up closing for a day as well. The hospital announced that basically, only employees essential to inpatient services needed to report to work. The Governor of our state announced that only "essential employees" in general needed to be out on the roads.

All of these weather events equaled alot of patients whose appointments had to be bumped. For all of these days, I reached out to most of my folks directly, and offered to handle their medical issues over the phone to the best of my ability. I felt bad, and so I made myself as available as was reasonable using our secure messaging system, email (many of my patients work at the same hospital) and my cell phone.

Everyone I contacted was thrilled that they didn't have to figure out how to get to my office; most were going to cancel anyways. What I found was that most acute issues were handled safely without a visit; physicals, pap smears were rescheduled.

Examples of issues that were managed successfully included UTIs, candida vaginitis, mild asthma, URIs and sinus infections. I've been following some more complex cases, and we were able to determine stability and plan next steps; these are folks undergoing workups for more serious symptoms.

My internal medicine colleagues described similar scenarios, diagnosing and treating everything from shingles to migraine to flu, over the phone. One of these colleagues commented that "it didn't feel good" when she realized that she was "non-essential".

It wasn't always this way. As a resident, and then a fellow with inpatient responsibilities, calling out for bad weather just wasn't done. Later, as an attending with inpatients to round on, ditto. But our practice has since turned to our hospitalist service to care for our inpatients. This was done with the encouragement of the hospital; almost all practices have done the same. Inpatient medicine is now its own animal.

Still, the idea that I'm an M.D. and also "not essential" feels odd. I feel guilty for staying at home with my kids.

A reader then introduced me to a wonderful doctor-mother blog written by surgeons called: Hot Heels, Cool Kicks, and a Scalpel: Trauma Mamas Balance Fashion, Fitness, and Family. One of their trauma surgeons has also been writing about the snow, and I was so glad to read her posts, as they alleviated my guilt, substantially. Two particularly relevant posts:

Rants of a Snow Beleaguered Trauma Surgeon

A Plea For Snow Days and Common Sense

I am learning to make peace with being non-essential. I am also considering offering telemedicine visits to my patients on a regular basis; though reimbursed at a much lower rate, the patient satisfaction would pay dividends. This may also free up visits for more acute illnesses and/ or physical exams.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the essential healthcare providers and hospital support workers who have to get in to work or stay in the hospital through weather like this, and I would be interested to read more about the experiences from "the other side"....

Say What?!? Time to find a job!

It’s that time of the year. Career preparation time. I am applying for community pediatric jobs in the D-M-V (Washington DC-Virginia-Maryland) area and it feels surreal. Medical school in the area was extremely enjoyable and our family hopes to return and lay some roots (is it weird to really want to be on House Hunters?!?).

What didn’t happen:
- I didn’t get Chief Resident. I was pretty bummed out for several weeks, but I think it’s for the best. My mentors reminded me that I pretty much have all of the skills I would have been able to obtain (leadership, administrative) and if I am totally honest with myself acting as an Inpatient Attending for several weeks and crazy hours is not my cup-of-tea! I’m all about outpatient medicine and am ready to have regular hours, my own patients, and more time with my family. No pseudo-residency-with- poor pay increase for me.

What has happened:
- started talking to my Academic Advisors about my interests in community pediatrics
- had a few outstanding people offer to serve as references (Clinic Director, Chair of our Peds Heme-Onc Department, Mentor, etc . . .)
- written and revised my cover letter
- written and revised my Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- gotten considerable feedback from my Clinic Director, Academic Advisor, family and friends including an amazing sorority sister who's a Lawyer who cut my cover letter up so much that I basically rewrote it and it's soo much better
- started regularly visiting the PracticeLink and Pedsjobs websites
- registered for the AAP National Conference in San Diego in October

What I still have to do:
- finish reading “Lean In” (loving this book, so enlightening and inspiring. I’m all about leaning in!)
- send out my cover letter and CV to personal contacts in the area letting them know I’m ready to “discuss employment opportunities” (loving the sound of that)
- actually find some jobs to apply to
- go to the AAP Conference’s career fair and professional development sessions and dazzle some program/practice reps and learn about interviewing and contracts
- finish the last 11 months of residency
- start work as a Pediatric Attending Physician (woo-hoo!)

Alright practicing physicians - any suggestions? Anything you see missing in my list above? In applying for jobs after Residency what mistakes did you make? What do you wish you’d done differently?

Jack Of All Trades, Master Of None

(Patient accounts have been altered so as to protect their privacy and identity)

When I walked into my internal medicine practice office yesterday morning at 6:30 a.m., I was surprised to see only three patients on my schedule. Then I remembered there was a major winter storm forecast, and no one was sure how bad we were going to get hit. By the time the early administrative staff was arriving at 7:30 a.m., patients had realized the storm was basically just alot of wind, and they started calling. And booking. The 8 a.m. slot filled, then the 8:20, soon all the rest... I had an almost-full schedule in no time. And it was almost all "urgent care".

I love urgent care. It's so nice to take a break from the "comprehensive annual exam". Or at least, the way I approach those... I tend to obsess over missing something, and so I take the annual exam as an opportunity to comb through the patient's chart, and attempt to make appropriate note of every past, present, and possible future health issue. Plus, this is my big chance to catch up with folks on their Real Lives. So, What do you do when you're not sitting on my exam table in a johnny? Of course, folks come in with their own agendas, the lists of questions jotted down on the backs of envelopes or in the iPhone. Some docs shut all that down, citing "This is your preventive health time only!" which is ridiculous. So, the issues are addressed. Then there's the vaccines review, and lab ordering... These may or may not be straightforward, and more often than not involve additional discussion. My physical exams always run overtime.

So, a day of mostly urgent visits, those single-issue problem visits that can be serious, but at least, straightforward, are a welcome change.

On the other hand, these days highlight what is beautiful, difficult, and terrifying about primary care specialties like internal medicine:

1. You're supposed to know everything about everything.

2. Because we're trained to be always thinking about the Whole Patient- Nothing is ever straightforward.

First patient. The check in sheet states "Cough". Ha, easy. Well, not so much. The cough was undertreated asthma in the setting of a mild cold. But his blood pressure was very elevated. And a quick perusal of the chart showed, this was someone who hadn't been in for a couple of years. Turns out this was someone who had extreme doctor anxiety and alot of issues that needed more fine-tuning. So the visit turned into counseling and negotiations. I set up a followup appointment with the actual primary care and sent my note... Hoping the guy comes back.

Now, running fifteen minutes behind, next patient. "Rash". This is only easy if it's Shingles... and it was. But, the patient is a healthcare provider. And they wanted to know- needed to know- know all the occupational health issues around Shingles. Did they need to notify all the patients they had seen in the past day? How long did they need to be out of work? Did my recommendation around that differ from our hospital's occupational health policy? I wanted to be able to provide a modicum of accurate counseling in all of these areas. I spent some time with her researching the guidelines and then asked her to contact both her supervisor and occupational health for the rest. Then she needed a note. We wrestled over how to phrase it. I hit "print". The printer wouldn't print. Had to run to another computer. Time ticking away.

Then done with that, I had to check my clinical messages (our in-office messaging, where the secretaries and nurses send me anything from patient phone or email queries, VNA concerns, controlled substance medication requests, or abnormal lab or radiology results). I need to quickly scan the list and make sure there is nothing requiring urgent attention. Then deal with those. Someone emailed about their ankle sprain. Nurse: They just want X-rays ordered. Can we do that? Me: Not really, please have them make an appointment. Et cetera.

Then, my email. There's several more emails for me in a now-massive email chain regarding one patient of mine. She has a large team of specialists; her case is complicated; she may need to be admitted, and I would need to arrange that. I read quickly and make sure no one has asked me to do anything yet. I know the specialists probably roll their eyes at my questions. I haven't treated many cases of what she has. I have to read up every time she has labs. But she comes to me, and I'm doing the best I can.

Now hopelessly behind. Next patient: STD screening. Ha, easy! Not. Upon questioning, she tells me one of her partners is a recovering IV drug user. I deliver alot of counseling around this, do a pelvic exam with cultures, send for bloodwork and arrange more followup with bloodwork in two months.

Next: Elderly patient with shortness of breath. She was pretty sick. She told me she had almost passed out in the waiting room. Long and short of it, this person was too sick for my office. But, she resisted my emergency room suggestion. We went into negotiations. I called the emergency room to expedite. We waited for a wheelchair. I typed up my assessment and impression so the emergency docs would have it. Why take the time to chart, when the next patient is waiting? I felt like I needed to present at least a reasonable hypothesis for her condition, as well as defend my decision to send her to the emergency room. I delved more into her chart. Why do her lungs sound like a freight train screeching to a halt? Asthma in someone who's never had asthma? COPD is someone who's never smoked? Pneumonia more likely. Pulmonary edema, maybe.... Type it up. Hit "finalize."

Next: Wrist pain in a guy who does martial arts. I had to do a quick review of the possibilities. Refresh myself on the exam findings in occult scaphoid fracture. Then look up what type of immobilizing brace to prescribe while that is being ruled out. Then the printer didn't work again.

Next: Lovely lady with- finally! A very straightforward issue. Simple. I took care of it and was ready to wrap it up, when, she wanted my opinion on the new blood thinners. She's on Coumadin for atrial fibrillation, for stroke prevention. These new blood thinners are advertised on T.V. The cardiologists are prescribing them right and left. I have never prescribed these. I look it up, with her right there, and review some of the major pros and cons. There's no testing to see if someone is on too low or too high of a dose. That's nice. But, they aren't as readily reversible, so if someone has a car accident or a bleeding ulcer, they may bleed to death more easily than otherwise. Basically, that's what I told her, adding that we can also ask her cardiologist about it. No, she said, I like to know my numbers.

Next, next and next. There was a physical exam in there, and a few more not-so-straightforward urgent care visits. That was it. Nine Patients, and a barrage of clinical messages and emails. I was starving, and I had to pee. I peed, ate something at my desk, and delved into charting, billing, and all the messages/ emails, as well as the arrangements to be made for that very sick patient. I checked in with the emergency room on the lady I had sent in- she was to be admitted. Ha. I knew she was sick.

Mixed in there, I check in with home. I'm thinking about my kids. On my personal email, there are messages back and forth about our autistic son who's had some issues at his special education preschool. School aversion, we don't know why. It's getting better, with a good and patient teacher. But, I worry I'm not doing enough reading and research on autism, that we're not doing enough behavioral work at home. So I got on Amazon and researched, ordered some books.

At the end of the day, I wonder why I'm so fried.

Is it a good, or a bad thing, to be in a job where your mind has to hop, skip and jump and WORK from case to case and even within a case? We see everything and anything, and we're expected to counsel on even more. That, plus the balance with home life, taking care of a family...

Is it a good thing to be a Jack of all trades, Master of none?

-posted by Genmedmom (generallymedicine.com)