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Nov 11, 2024 | 
opmed.doximity.com | Giulia Faison |Mustafa Farooq |Milay Luis Lam
Many of us are just becoming acquainted with the term neurodivergence, created to contrast atypical mental and neurological function with what is neurotypical or “normal.” Some brief history: Several decades after autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Asperger’s were included in the DSM, sociologist Judy Singer coined the term neurodiversity, sensing that a new sociopolitical movement was underway.
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Aug 19, 2024 | 
opmed.doximity.com | Nishant Pandya |Melissa Schiffman |Giulia Faison
Patient rooms are rarely quiet at the urgent care office. The sounds of children yelling, families talking, and restless siblings making balloons from medical gloves serve as the background to our workdays. Entering a bustling room is a manageable challenge. It’s one of my responsibilities to join the fray and kick off a conversation. I like finding the right wavelength to match the room’s energy. Compared with a noisy room, I find it more challenging to communicate with the distracted family.
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Aug 19, 2024 | 
opmed.doximity.com | Nishant Pandya |Melissa Schiffman |Giulia Faison
My earliest encounter with appendicitis was when I was in medical school, but not via textbooks and CT scans, in the way that you would expect. I had stayed up late studying and decided on Taco Bell for a late-night snack. For some reason, half an hour after eating, I ended up on the treadmill, maybe to work off those excess calories. A few hours later, I had abdominal pain unlike anything I’d ever had. I'm not prone to abdominal pain. And yes, it was periumbilical.
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Aug 15, 2024 | 
opmed.doximity.com | Melissa Schiffman |Giulia Faison |Aditya Jain |Jordan Frey
Thoughts of Love for Prior Authorization Staff, and other Meditations for the Modern Physician For mental health awareness month, my work offered a meditation challenge on a popular app. Hoorah: a job-approved procrastination! I downloaded the app and tried it for a few five-minute sessions. A whispery woman told me to banish negativity and let in more light. She dragged out her s’s like a snake. Ssssshe told me to breathe. And so I did. I breathed in. I breathed out.
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Aug 15, 2024 | 
opmed.doximity.com | Giulia Faison |Aditya Jain |Jordan Frey |Hailey Roumimper
As a California-Italy cultural hybrid, I have always lived near the water. From being lulled to sleep by the gentle waves of the Adriatic Sea as an infant, to taking long walks along the Pacific Coast Highway accompanied by the crashing waves of the Pacific, to sitting on a bench at the Lido lost in contemplation while staring at the Venetian lagoon … the water has been my most constant guide and companion throughout my life.
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May 28, 2024 | 
opmed.doximity.com | Manasvi Khullar |JoAnn Pinkerton |Giulia Faison |helen CHEN
Health Care Needs Better CybersecurityIt was the calm before the storm. During a shift on my surgery rotation, we received a massive influx of patients from a neighboring hospital. The team was confused why ambulances continued to stream in, until we realized the other hospital was the victim of a cyberattack, and their EMR system was paralyzed. They were unable to view patient charts and deliver life-saving care, and began diverting ambulances to our hospital.
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May 28, 2024 | 
opmed.doximity.com | JoAnn Pinkerton |Giulia Faison |helen CHEN |Brady Laughlin
What Was New in the World of Menopause and Hot Flash Treatment at ACOG 2024? Vasomotor symptoms (VMS), or hot flashes, are reported by up to 80% of women during the menopausal transition and are the leading cause of medical attention during the transition. More than one-third of women report severe symptoms, which last, on average, seven years but can last ten years or more after the last period, with ethnic and racial variation.
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May 28, 2024 | 
opmed.doximity.com | Giulia Faison |helen CHEN |Brady Laughlin |Leila Haghighat
As a neonatologist, I can count on both hands the times I was, undoubtedly helpfully, informed during sign-out that this particular patient had a “difficult parent.” Undoubtedly helpfully, I like to think, because either the previous physician, or nurse, or secretary, or respiratory therapist had an encounter with the parent that somehow altered their expectation of what their workflow would be like that day.
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May 28, 2024 | 
opmed.doximity.com | helen CHEN |Giulia Faison |Brady Laughlin |Leila Haghighat
Home hospice is a subject that has been explored greatly. The focus on death and dying and inadequate funding often take a front seat in many of the conversations, rightfully so. And yet, hospice is also about celebration of life and connection. Below, I share lessons in the latter I learned from working with an interdisciplinary home hospice team as an inpatient and outpatient clinician. 1) Cultural ConnectionI once had a hospice patient with pancreatic cancer.
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Apr 10, 2024 | 
opmed.doximity.com | Giulia Faison |Jordan Frey |Lauren Grawert
I awake to the sound of a distant church bell echoing through the hazy Venetian sky. Is it 8 a.m. already? Rising sharply out of my cousin’s bed, I glance at my phone: I slept through the alarm. The jetlag certainly did not clear the thick fog that had begun to settle a few days before Christmas, when my cousin had called me in the middle of the California night to inform me that her dad had decided to start palliative sedation for his wife.
