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Lauren Ashley Umstattd, MD Lauren Ashley Umstattd, MD (1 Posts)

Resident Physician Contributing Writer

University of Missouri

Lauren Umstattd is an Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery resident at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. She was born and raised in the Midwest. She is a former Division I gymnast who competed for the University of Missouri as an undergraduate and graduated Summa Cum Laude. She continued her education at the University of Missouri School of Medicine and was elected into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband, cooking, and traveling.




We’re Ignoring a Key Factor in the Opioid Epidemic

Published by Lauren Ashley Umstattd, MD

In order for the country to make meaningful progress in tackling the opioid epidemic, we need a cultural shift in the way patients and providers think about pain.

Pharmaceutical companies and physicians are being demonized for their manufacturing and dispensing of opioid analgesics. Money-hungry executives from Big Pharma caused the crisis by brainwashing doctors to prescribe these medications left and right. Greedy doctors want patients dependent upon them for years, ensuring a steady stream of paying patients in their waiting room. Drugs drive the market. Drugs lead to big profits for everyone involved. The more drugs, the better.

Figure 1. “Relationship between System 1 and System 2 thinking.” Daily encounters lead to the activation of System 1 or System 2 thinking. Problems demanding higher levels of thought either directly or indirectly activate System 2. Repetitive exposure decreases the demand for System 2 thinking and increases both productivity and the risk for error.

Systems-Based Thinking: How Subconscious Thought Affects Medical Decision Making

Published by David Louis, MD

System-based thinking describes a set of subconscious thought processes aptly named System 1 and System 2. The profession of medicine relies heavily on SBT — the ability to rapidly diagnose, treat, and improvise during stressful situations is dependent on these systems, which develop and mature throughout one’s training.

A Modest Proposal: There is No Substitute for Time in Medicine

Published by Kevin Chun, MD

Physician burnout has emerged as an increasingly concerning phenomenon in medicine. As high as 51% of physicians in a Medscape survey report symptoms of burnout. Doctors face higher demands with less time and support. Academic medical centers, which historically have been insulated from outside forces, are now seeing larger patient censuses, leaving less time for physicians to work through each patient’s case carefully.

Kusama: On Humanism in Psychiatry

Published by Pooja Lakshmin, MD

I first heard of Yayoi Kusama last year when her spellbinding exhibit came to the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Admittedly late to the international zeitgeist of Kusama, what initially drew me in was her story — a Japanese-American avant-garde artist who suffered from severe mental illness and successfully transformed that suffering into riveting artwork.

Pooja Lakshmin, MD Pooja Lakshmin, MD (1 Posts)

Attending Physician Guest Writer

George Washington University School of Medicine

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin is an attending psychiatrist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the George Washington University School of Medicine. She specializes in women’s mental health and perinatal psychiatry. She is interested in gender, stigma and studying the experiences of women who suffer from depression and anxiety. She is passionate about humanism in medicine. She can be found on twitter @PoojaLakshmin and on her blog www.poojalakshmin.com.