All posts tagged: Doctors

Why Doctors Hide Mistakes

Why Doctors Hide Mistakes

One of my earliest memories of shame in medicine comes from my surgical rotation as a medical student. I woke up at 4 am to be at the hospital by 5 am to round on post-surgical patients. One morning, I forgot to put a patient’s identification sticker on the progress note in their paper chart. After my presentation in front of a group of residents and students, the attending called me a “lazy doctor.” My face went hot with shame as I looked down. I had tried so hard, and I didn’t know what I could have done better. I thought I had presented well and written a complete progress note. My only mistake was forgetting the sticker. I never forgot a patient sticker again after that day. I also never forgot the shame of being called a “lazy” doctor. That’s the thing about shame-based teaching: It works—in a way. Shame made sure I never forgot again, but it also taught me that making a mistake meant I was a “bad” doctor. I wasn’t alone. …

Italian Doctors May Be Prosecuted for Refusing to Assist in Suicide

Italian Doctors May Be Prosecuted for Refusing to Assist in Suicide

This article is republished from National Review with the permission of the author.. Assisted suicide/euthanasia legalization is spreading like a stain. But with most doctors refusing to participate, how do we ensure that people who want to die are indeed made dead? Answer: Blatant coercion. Usually, the attacks on “medical conscience” (as it is known) involves threatening refusing doctors’ professional licenses. The medical literature is rife with such advocacy by bioethics notables like Ezekiel Emanuel, Julian Savulescu, and Peter Singer, who argue that doctors either participate in requested legal medical procedures — even if morally opposed — or face processional discipline. If doctors don’t like it, these activists argue, they should get out of medicine. Some doctors have already faced the music over such refusals. In Australia a doctor was disciplined for refusing a sex-selection abortion. Ontario, Canada, courts have ruled that doctors must either euthanize legally qualified patients or tender an “effective referral,” i.e., procure another doctor for the patient the refusing MD knows will provide the lethal jab — in other words: forced complicity. Now in Italy, the next …

Helen Mirren says she avoids doctors and turns to AI instead

Helen Mirren says she avoids doctors and turns to AI instead

Helen Mirren says she avoids doctors and treats artificial intelligence (AI) when she has questions about her health. “I ought to be diagnosed with the ‘opposite of hypochondria’, I just completely ignore everything,” the MobLand star told Entertainment Weekly at the Toronto International Film Festival, where she is promoting her latest thriller A Talent for Murder. When co-star Alden Ehrenreich asked if that meant she avoided doctors, Mirren replied: “Totally deny. I avoid doctors. Oh no, totally. And it’s working.” Ehrenreich, who had described himself as a hypochondriac earlier, said he would be “thrilled” if he could “just have a doctor live in my house”. Mirren had a distinctly modern solution: “Well, you do. It’s called AI.” “You know, AI is amazing. ‘It hurts, but it doesn’t hurt that much!’ Oh, it’s incredible,” she added. Helen Mirren says she avoids doctors and treats artificial intelligence as a live-in doctor when she has questions about her health. (Getty) A Talent for Murder, directed by Anton Corbijn, stars Mirren as Patricia Highsmith, the American novelist who created …

Doctors Just Used AI to Perform Brain Surgery

Doctors Just Used AI to Perform Brain Surgery

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech A team of neurosurgeons in London have used AI to help them operate on a man’s brain. The AI tool analyzed live footage of the operation and flagged key brain structures like nerves and blood vessels as surgeons removed a large tumor on the patient’s pituitary gland, according to The Guardian, ensuring that they didn’t poke around where they shouldn’t be. The surgery, performed at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in May, saved the eyesight of the patient, 48-year-old Rhys Hibbert. Details of the procedure, though, were kept under wraps until now. “When I came round… I could see everything in the room clearly,” Hibbert told The Guardian. Before the surgery, he couldn’t walk on his own without glasses or walking sticks. The pituitary gland is an especially delicate part of the brain to operate on, located right next to the arteries that bring blood to the brain and the optic nerves that control vision. “Going …

AI scribes promise to ease doctors’ workload — but at what cost to patients?

AI scribes promise to ease doctors’ workload — but at what cost to patients?

Visits to a new doctor, physio or specialist often begin with: “Do you mind if I use AI?” According to Off the Record, a new report by Digital Rights Watch, more than 40% of Australian doctors are now using AI scribes. These tools listen to consultations, feeding what they hear into Large Language Models – similar to ChatGPT or Claude – to generate medical notes. For clinicians, AI scribes are an easy sell. They eliminate hours of paperwork, freeing energy to focus on the patient. This can profoundly change how chronically burned out doctors feel about their work. And with Medicare only compensating doctors for face-to-face time, and not note-taking, the financial and emotional incentives for practitioners are undeniable. Yet the benefit for patients is less clear, especially when we have little transparency about who has access to deeply personal medical data, or how this data is handled by these lightly regulated AI scribes. The benefit for patients is less clear (Getty/iStock) How do AI scribes work? And what can go wrong? Many AI scribes …

How to Treat and Prevent Blisters, According to Doctors

How to Treat and Prevent Blisters, According to Doctors

Everything about blisters is inconvenient. They’re unsightly, often painful and can prevent you from wearing your favorite pair of shoes or comfortably holding a dumbbell. But resist the temptation to pop or pick: Proper care prevents infection and speeds up recovery. I spoke to dermatologists and podiatrists about how to treat blisters and prevent them in the first place. Using their expert guidance, I rounded up over-the-counter products to help you do both from brands like Neosporin, Band-Aid, Vaseline and more. How to treat blisters First things first: If you have a blister, stop doing whatever initially caused it, says Dr. Stephanie Saxton-Daniels, a board-certified dermatologist at Westlake Dermatology in Dallas, Texas. That may mean not wearing a certain pair of shoes or taking a break from lifting weights. If you continue applying friction to the affected area, the blister will likely get worse or even pop, which is painful and can lead to an infection. There are three main steps you should follow to treat a blister. Each one requires different over-the-counter products. Gently …

‘The Child Is Terrified’: Measles Doctors Speak Out

‘The Child Is Terrified’: Measles Doctors Speak Out

Morris: One child was from a family that was uninsured because they didn’t feel that they would need to use the medical system. They were faced with the high burden of cost of our health care system. The cost was playing into the parents’ decision on whether or not their child should receive necessary medical care. I said something like: “Please don’t go home. Your child needs oxygen. She has pneumonia. We will figure out a way to pay for this, because we acknowledge what we do is expensive.” On top of that, the parent had several other children in the home who weren’t vaccinated. It was past the period where we could intervene with vaccines to try to prevent infection, so then our recommendation was to quarantine their children at home for 21 days: “Don’t interact with anybody else in your community. Don’t go to the grocery store, even with a mask. Please take this seriously.” It takes time for parents to understand the level of concern I have, even when their child is …

Why Surgeons Aren't Called Doctors And It's Not Why You Think

Why Surgeons Aren't Called Doctors And It's Not Why You Think

To become a surgeon in the UK, you need to finish medical school first. Then,  you can “join the paid two-year foundation programme where you’ll work in six placements in different settings,” the NHS says. “After your foundation programme, you can apply for paid specialty training to become a general surgeon, which will take a minimum of eight years.”  After all that training, you’d think you’d at least get to call yourself a doctor, right? Well, in the UK and Ireland, many don’t ― the formal title for doctors in those parts of the world is “Mr, Miss, Mrs,” or “Ms.” Why?  Like lots of baffling things about the UK and Ireland, it comes down to tradition (and possibly a little bit of snobbery).  The British Medical Journal (BMJ) says that the “curious” tradition, which it calls “a mystery to doctors in other countries as well as to the British public,” dates back to before 1800.  Back then, physicians were usually “gentlemen” who possessed a formal Medical Degree (MD) from an accredited university. But surgeons didn’t usually have one …

Top Cosmetic Doctors and Aesthetic Gurus in America

Top Cosmetic Doctors and Aesthetic Gurus in America

A quiet revolution has been underway in Hollywood. Many famous faces have never looked more authentically themselves. The puffy, overfilled look that once dominated celebrity aging has given way to something more nuanced: an effortless preservation that feels earned rather than engineered. While it’s only speculation whether stars like Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt, Emma Stone and Matt Damon have had any help along the way, their visages offer plenty of inspiration — and motivation. What’s striking isn’t that they don’t appear to age, it’s that they appear to age well. Whatever choices they’ve made, lifestyle or cosmetic, seem guided by restraint. The new Hollywood ideal isn’t about turning back the clock. It’s about looking like the best, most vital version of yourself at every stage. But admiring the results and achieving them are two very different things. Finding the right board-certified practitioner is one of the most consequential decisions you’ll ever make — and one of the most confusing. The industry is crowded, the credentials are complicated and the social media is often louder and …

UK children will be one of unhealthiest generations in decades, doctors say

UK children will be one of unhealthiest generations in decades, doctors say

Children in the UK will grow up to be one of the unhealthiest generations in decades, with child health outcomes having declined or stalled completely across all areas, a group of leading paediatricians has said. Reduced vaccination rates alongside rising hospital admissions for asthma and mental health disorders are all contributing factors to the UK’s record on children’s health, which should be seen as a “national embarrassment”, their analysis has found. The report, published by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), analysed 12 globally recognised indicators of child health and wellbeing including infant mortality rates, oral health, obesity, vaccination rates, the prevalence of mental health disorders and asthma rates. Child health outcomes across the UK had significantly stagnated across all metrics, portraying the UK’s children as among the unhealthiest in western Europe. For example, only 84% of children in the UK receive two doses of the MMR vaccine by age five, which is below the World Health Organization’s 95% target and makes the UK the worst performing of G7 nations. The UK …