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Ethical Questions for Medical Professionalism in the Digital Age

At the end of the day, I do not see social media as an end to itself. I enjoy the conversation and the opportunity to learn outside the walls of my medical school without having to put in too much effort. I relish the (illusion of?) freedom that it provides by drawing together the world’s most technology and innovation-driven minds. It allows high-level discussions of even the most esoteric topics and promotes conversation and dissemination of information across a globally dispersed network of people. But I avoid writing about it on its own because I think of it more of a tool towards social change rather than a method of changing the world.

However, I have been asked by others interested in what I do regarding how I manage my digital presence and the potential questions of professionalism on digital media. I don’t have answers for anything, but I did have the opportunity recently to take part in a MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics discussion regarding the issue. Thankfully, the talk did not revolve around what indiscretions should not be shown on social media and how we should prevent them (though from time to time during the discussion these issues did come up). As I listened to the discussion, I realized that it raised several critical, unresolved questions that the medical profession would need to answer in order for us to move forward in shaping social media policies for students and physicians online: Continued…

Posted in Policy & Philosophy, Social Media & Innovation.

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By Emily Lu – January 23, 2012

Note to Myself (and other medical students): On Physician Incomes

Every so often, someone writes a post talking about how physicians don’t actually earn as much as they seem due to medical student loans, or some story about how physicians are being forced into bankruptcy by their own personal choices or Medicare reimbursement changes. Especially with the current dialogue surrounding Occupy (your city here) and income inequality in the United States, I can’t help being a little skeptical about these claims, but then again, I’m no economist and so I have waited to see something that has numbers to back up their complaints.

Recently, I came across this article from Dr. Ben Brown has done a pretty decent job of summing up the issues with physician income. Continued…

Posted in Medical Education.

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By Emily Lu – January 15, 2012

My Only New Year’s Resolution for 2012

Every year, I make the intention to work harder and do more in some way, and I often succeed. Last year, I made three resolutions and completed two of them.  But there is one thing that I have never been able to be successful at making any resolutions about (New Year’s or otherwise) and that is perhaps the most common resolution of all: losing weight.

As I wrote in my latest post on Doctors for America, there are many reasons why losing weight is difficult. Our bodies are built to preserve the weight we gain; so, even if we do succeed in losing a few pounds, we are biologically queued to do all we can to go back to the higher weight. Furthermore, fundamentally, as anyone who has ever watched the Biggest Loser realizes, the whole trifecta that leads to better health — weight loss, exercise, eating better — is not just a matter of hitting some short-term goal but a redefining of the environment that we live in.

As doctors and doctors-to-be, we often speak about “lifestyle change” as if it is something we can just write on a prescription pad or institute with a new health insurance policy, without breaking down the words and realizing that we are asking people to change their lives. We’re sweeping under the rug the fact that it is much harder to lose weight (involves eating much fewer calories and exercising much more) than to maintain a weight you’re already at. In the process, we’re stigmatizing our own patients for being lazy and weak-willed.

This unhealthy focus on unsustainable weight loss needs to stop. So, in my own quest for lifestyle change in order to achieve better health, I am simply focusing in on one thing: to develop a habit of exercise. Continued…

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By Emily Lu – January 14, 2012

Being Grateful for 2011

While I do have an actual post on New Year’s Resolutions in the works, I thought I would take a moment and reflect on how far I’ve come from last year’s resolutions and where I was at this time last year.

After all, one of the greatest rewards of writing is to be able to look back on what you’ve written and realize just how far you have come. Continued…

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By Emily Lu – January 2, 2012

Reflections on the IHI National Forum (Part III): The Moral Test of Health Care

This post originally appeared on the Doctors for America Progress Notes blog.

“The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are at the twilight of life, the elderly; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.” — Hubert Humphery, at the dedication of the Department for Health and Human Services Building

For the final keynotes of the IHI National Forum, we were treated to a speech by Dr. Don Berwick, former head of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare and founder of IHI. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to my flight schedule, but I read the text of his speech afterwards and was struck, as he had been, by Hubert Humphrey’s quote above. That quote spoke to his desire to put patients first, especially his most disadvantaged patients who were not among the rich, white men that dominated decisions on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

In health care, we have started to recognize that the disadvantaged are among those with the worst health outcomes, that perhaps we do need to devote more resources to “underserved medicine” from case workers or community health workers on the ground to a new generation of medical school graduates that are educated in health disparities and interested in doing all they can to combat it. There are programs that are even starting at the college level, connecting college volunteers with low-income patients to help with their psychosocial needs inside and outside of health care.

In our work to improve our healthcare system, I believe that we need to take this a step further. We need to recognize that the success of our health care system also rests on the extent to which it addresses the needs of the disadvantaged. Continued…

Posted in Making a Difference, Policy & Philosophy.

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By Emily Lu – December 30, 2011