Doximity's Op-Med

2 days ago | opmed.doximity.com | Devika Rao |Neha Sahota |Jessica Reeves |Shannon Fang

I felt tears forming. I hastened out of the exam room, shielding my face from the medical student assigned to me. A mother of a patient had admonished me loudly for overstepping my bounds, accusing me of not knowing anything about her child. She pointed her finger at me, her eyes large and wide with anger. That evening, I received an email from the medical student: "Dr. Rao," he wrote, "I know today was hard, but I want you to know you're a fantastic physician.

1 week ago | opmed.doximity.com | Sachin J Shah |Naveen Kumar Reddy |Jordan Frey |Chris van Eyck

“Hope.” That’s what the 74-year-old veteran told me when he was approved to receive lecanemab, a groundbreaking new therapy for Alzheimer’s disease. “I feel like I have it again.” As a neurologist and founding member of the San Francisco VA’s Advanced Alzheimer’s Therapeutics group, I’ve found that moments like this capture both the promise and peril medical innovations bring to my patients. With the advent of these therapies, I can finally offer something essential to my patients: optimism.

2 weeks ago | opmed.doximity.com | Lynne Lederman |Aditya Jain |Jay Shah |Hillary McDonald

“Driving Knowledge to Action: Building a Better Future” is the presidential theme for this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting, May 30 to June 3 in Chicago and online. The opening session will include addresses by Robin Zon, ASCO president, Ruth Porat, president and CIO of Alphabet and Google, and author Douglas Abrams, who will speak on mental immunity and borrowing hope in times of crisis. A record-breaking 7,775 abstracts were submitted; of those, 3,200 were selected for presentation.

3 weeks ago | opmed.doximity.com | Jay Shah |Hillary McDonald |Stephanie Wottrich |Roxanne Nelson

The call came at the end of a long day admitting patients as a resident physician. When I answered, expecting to hear my mom's voice, I was instead met with the tone of an EMT: "We were called to your family's house and are currently doing CPR on your father.” In the background, I could hear my mother crying, her voice desperate. I sat paralyzed in the workroom, staring at a half-written HPI. "Sir, I'm a resident physician," I responded, voice cracking despite myself.

3 weeks ago | opmed.doximity.com | Hillary McDonald |Stephanie Wottrich |Roxanne Nelson

During my didactic year of PA school, it was a running joke that we spent eight hours a day, five days a week, sitting in a chair and learning about how terrible a sedentary lifestyle was. We also got very little sleep and even less exercise, because we spent most of our time training to be clinicians who would one day teach patients how important it was to be well-rested and active.