Emergency Medicine: 14 Haikus
A specialty known for its brevity, emergency medicine can be appropriately summed up in haiku form. This is a collection of haikus about life in the emergency department.
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Resident Physician Contributing Writer
University of Chicago
Amy Faith Ho, MD is an emergency physician, published writer and national speaker on issues pertaining to healthcare, with work featured in Forbes, Chicago Tribune, NPR, KevinMD, and TEDx. Full works at amyfaithho.com.
Unexpected Outcomes: Becoming a Neurosurgeon After Having Neurosurgery
I didn’t know what it was, but it hurt — a subtle, gnawing soreness that I wouldn’t think about, but was never quite off my mind. Medical school had just started. I was beginning a new chapter in my life, and everything was good — everything except that unusual pain in my back.
Trach and PEG
While there is always an intrinsic desire to root for patient recovery and ultimate survival, I struggled immensely with the decision to pursue invasive measures. This is a poem that helped depict my feelings for this patient encounter.
On The Other Side: Resident Physician as Patient
It really doesn’t take much to remind you just how human you are. I utilize the adjective “human” because most believe, both inside and outside of the confines of the medical community, that physicians are entitled and even expected to behave in somewhat robotic ways, with the long hours and constant absorption and dispensation of medical knowledge that often comes with performing the job and doing so well.
Facing Incompetence: Intern Year (Part 1 of 3)
Some time ago, you walked across the stage and received your first white coat. More recently, you walked across another stage and became hooded into your profession as a physician. Congratulations. You are now the owner of a piece of thick paper that allows you to medically manage acutely ill patients and alter the course of a patient’s treatment.
Breaking the “Successful Intern” Barrier : 8 Small Things for Outpatient Success
Realizing that we have both inpatient and outpatient months, which require different skill sets, I feel that it would be better to split these lists into both outpatient and inpatient suggestions. After a few month of being on outpatient rotations, here is my list of eight things to master in order to break the successful intern barrier in the outpatient world.
Success in Intern Year: Momentum over Minutiae
I got an email recently from one of the faculty at my program who prompted us to each evaluate the question “what does success in intern year look like?”
Residency Prepares Us: For the Better or the Worse
Twenty minutes of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Fifteen beats per minute. Seven nurses. Five doctors. Three paramedics. Two anesthesiologists. One transcriber and me. And then the eerie silence of the trauma room as the death was called.
Living the Dream
“Hey hey! How are you?” someone calls out as I walk into the fluorescently lit emergency department I call home. “Living the dream,” is my habitual answer, and it’s only half facetious.
Evidence-Based Medicine and The Young Physician: A Relationship in the Works
Despite EBM’s role as an incredible advancement in the history of medical care and patient management, there remains many challenges that young clinicians must face when attempting to implement EBM into their respective practices.
Ups and Downs of My Intern Year in Emergency Medicine
Everyone warns you that intern year is hard. It’s a year of little sleep, a rollercoaster of emotions both good and bad. Frustration and guilt in wanting to know everything now because everything you don’t know might be what matters for this patient, this time. And tremendous successes. Some of the things I did this year, I really can’t believe I was able to do. And survive.
From Volunteer to Family Physician
Sometimes, it’s difficult to recall that single defining moment or person that sends you on the path you’re meant to take in life. I was fortunate in that I found that experience halfway through my undergraduate career at the University of California, Davis. I had recently lost my grandmother — although I’d wanted to help, all I’d been able to do at the hospital was translate for her. That overwhelming sense of helplessness I felt due to my lack of medical knowledge fueled my desire to help and serve others as a physician.
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Rutgers - Robert Wood Johnson
Farrah Fong is from the San Francisco Bay Area and did her undergraduate studies at UC Davis in Exercise Biology and Music Performance (piano). She went to grad school at UMDNJ's Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and currently attends medical school at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (Class of 2016).
Her interests include preventive medicine, working with under-served populations, nutrition, music, lifting weights, dance, writing, and cooking. She will be completing her residency training in Family Medicine at Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson in New Jersey.