“Don’t trust your colleagues”

“…thinking back, what makes me sad (and a little bit ashamed), is that the primary message was, ‘Don’t trust your colleagues.'”

Who Says You Can’t Become an Anaesthesiologist?

Whether intentional or not, the article reeks exclusivism, which is something I think medicine can do without. I don’t need a superhero complex.

The Future of This Blog

Someone once commented on this blog’s heading*. “Reader, traveler, politics, medical student…” they mused, “Are you sure you’re in the right field of study?” For a second, I thought they were joking. But they weren’t. I had spent enough time wrestling with my career choice. Suggesting that it was a poor one did not dissuade

“Whatever You Decide To Be, Be A Teacher”

I recently had the opportunity to speak about medicine as a career at a local high school. It has been many years, and even as I narrow my fields of practice, I remain passionate about doing what I can to enable kids to make informed choices about their careers – and so that those who

Intro for Anaesthetic Undergraduate Students

The student was standing on their tip-toes, peering over the drapes. They had barely looked at the ventilator, so engrossed were they in the surgery.  “So, are you here for anaesthesia, or for surgery?” our registrar asked.  The student turned. “Well… I am on my anaesthesia rotation, technically… but I’m actually interested in surgery.” Ten

A Fullness of Uncertain Significance [Book Review]

If a medical doctor pens a memoir, I will read it. I don’t care if they are a surgeon (uneasy relationship), a physician (intimidatingly book smart), or an anaesthetist (well that’s pretty close to home). Even if nobody else reads your book, I will be your audience of one. But A Fullness of Uncertain Significance

Prescription Comedy: An Unlikely Antidote to Physician Burnout

Pranathi Kondapaneni, MD, author of Prescription Comedy: An Unlikely Antidote To Physician Burnout, studied medicine some time before me, but our stories are not so different. Although on an entirely different continent, and an entirely different cultural background, her experience with burnout resonates clearly with me. While her writing somewhat lacks prosaism (and has an

The Last Weekend Of Mental Health Awareness Month: Watch This

Or: Guess who’s back. A little over two years ago, I heard of an old classmate working on a documentary project about bullying and discrimination in medicine. Longtime readers of this blog will know that I have written about bullying and discrimination before. The director and brains behind the project, Adil Khan, interviewed a few

Train your trainees

Sometimes, I think clinicians forget that they were inexperienced and under-qualified juniors once, too. There is nothing admirable about learning to place an intercostal drain on YouTube, without senior supervision, as many of us like to brag.

Read This Book: In Shock by Rana Awdish

“In Shock” is about medicine’s broken telephone. It is about our inherent, but often unintentional, disrespect for patients and ourselves. It is about seeking comfort in the wrong ways, and about righting our bad medical habits.