Resident Physician Contributing Writer
McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University
Ari Pence is a second year Family Medicine resident at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. She earned her MD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to medical school she worked at the University of Illinois as an instructor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Health Sciences teaching courses on the socioeconomic determinants of healthcare, as well as a lab coordinator in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience with a focus on the effects of exercise, nutrition and injury on memory and cognition across the human lifespan. She is passionate about the intersections of women's health, mental illness and integrative medicine in the primary care setting, and providing holistic, person-focused care to the most vulnerable and underserved patients.
It was 2 a.m. and I was downward-dog in the call room. Earlier during this maternal/child health rotation night shift, I had labored with three other moms in so many different positions that my back felt like it might actually break.
Last week, the resident physicians and fellows of the University of Washington collectively decided to walk off the job for a 15-minute “unity break” in protest of unacceptable working conditions and stalled contract negotiations.
In my first post in this two-part series, I presented an argument for why physicians and administrators need to work together to develop small-scale interventions to bring meaning to medicine while we continue to push for larger systemic change. In this post, I will explore some effective (and some less effective) themes for interventions for residents.
Over the last year, our collective minds have been captivated by stories about child and family separation, detainment of citizens and immigrants, and the quality of the health care within detention facilities. These stories have been jarring and traumatic, and have also awoken an important level of national consciousness about the nature of detention. What has not received as much coverage in recent discourse is the ongoing nature of solitary confinement in our justice system.
Of all the fulfilling and purposeful vocations to pursue, we’ve ended up trying to find our footing in the vast and ever-changing maze of medicine. Propelled by some combination of privilege, perseverance, and circumstance, we became doctors — many of us with the noble drive to heal and support other humans through the physical and spiritual struggles of life.
A smear of what I assumed was cat poop obstructed a narrow asphalt path that led to a mobile home. It was raining. I tiptoed around the sopping heap of excrement. Behind me, the wound care attending physician followed.
I am very pleased to welcome you all to a new academic year at the esteemed institution at which you find yourself, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, thanks to the Match. Late June is always somewhat bittersweet, but it is a simultaneously exciting time in the academic year.
After reading the title of this article, you may think that I am one of those hospital higher-ups trying to peddle “social hour” as a miraculous cure for burnout rather than an ineffective band-aid on a broken system. I can assure you, I am not. I am one of the residents on the front lines.
My wife and I were preparing to move overseas so I could begin medical school in Israel. We both wanted children young. I grew up as one of five siblings, and we looked forward to a big family. I knew that having kids would change my medical education experience, but I had no idea how grateful I would be for the advice I received that sunny spring day in Alabama.
Last May, Evan matched into a fellowship that will take him across the country for a year, beginning in August. Because he’s a little bit off in the head, he chose subspecialty training that will likely entail even longer hours than residency at the same pay scale.
Nurses in New York City are pushing back against hospital systems that put profits over patients and threaten their efforts to strike for safer staffing ratios. While nurses are fighting, physicians have thus far remained on the sidelines of this struggle.
Here I am, come and get me! A playful provocation we have all used with much more than literal meaning as a mantra. But going through the rigors, chills and metaphorical bacteremia of medical education, I lost some of the pieces that made me confident to be myself.
Fellow Physician Contributing Writer
Johns Hopkins University / National Institutes of Health
Dr. Michael Barbato is a pediatric hematology oncology fellow at Johns Hopkins University/National Institutes of Health. He is specializing in epigenetic research and considering a bone marrow transplant clinical focus. He is interested in advocating for maintaining professional and personal life balance in medicine and physician burnout. He is particularly passionate about the arts and how they can be used as expressions in medicine. He can be found on Instagram @mibarbato.
