Education / 11.08.2023

This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Contact a qualified medical professional before engaging in any physical activity, or making any changes to your diet, medication or lifestyle, Navigating the broad universe of medicine resembles finding a path in a maze. Picking the right medical specialization is crucial for both professional growth and personal fulfillment. Medicine's field is varied, each having distinct challenges and benefits, thus making this decision crucial.

Self-Assessment and Introspection

Understanding oneself is vital before exploring medical fields. What are your unique interests? Which medical areas spark your enthusiasm? It's common to advise students to reflect on their likes and dislikes in various subjects. To save some time, you might hire an EssayPro to lessen your workload. This could enlighten you about your abilities and preferences. Each medical field has specific requirements. A surgeon may have unpredictable hours and stressful situations, while a dermatologist may have more set hours. Understanding the work-life balance you desire can affect your choice. Visualizing your future is essential. Where do you want to be in the next decade or two? Whether in a busy hospital emergency room, a peaceful research laboratory, or a community clinic, your long-term goals can guide your current choices. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA / 19.12.2022

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Anna L. Goldman, M.D., M.P.A., M.P.H Assistant Professor of Medicine General Internal Medicine Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Experts on the healthcare labor market have long debated the existence and magnitude of a physician shortage. Physician work hours are a major contributor to physician supply issues, but little research is available on recent trends in work hours by physicians.  In addition, no available studies have rigorously estimated changes in the physician workforce size during the pandemic. (more…)
Author Interviews, Critical Care - Intensive Care - ICUs, JAMA / 17.09.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hirotaka Kato, PhD Graduate School of Health Management Keio University  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response:  Physicians are increasingly engaging in clinical practice on a part-time basis, but little is known about the quality of care provided by these physicians. In this analysis of nationally representative data of the elderly patients admitted to hospitals, we found that patients treated by hospitalists who worked more clinical days per year had significantly lower 30-day mortality compared with patients treated by hospitalists working fewer clinical days, even after accounting for the differences in severity of illness.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Gender Differences, JAMA / 17.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Anjali Sergeant McMaster Medicine Class of 2022 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: This collaborative study from the University of Toronto and McMaster University found that inpatients in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) cared for by female physicians had lower mortality rates compared to those cared for by male physicians. Specifically, a 0.47% difference in patient deaths was reported, which is significant in the context of thousands of deaths in Ontario hospitals each year. This supports similar findings from an American study (Tsugawa et. al) published in 2017. Our study also examined gender-based differences in medical practice, including lab and imaging tests ordered, and medications prescribed. Female doctors ordered significantly more imaging tests for their patients but this factor did not explain their lower patient death rates. The mortality difference shrank when accounting for the number of years that doctors were in practice. This suggests that patients of female doctors may have better outcomes partially because more women make up newer medical grads in Canada, who may be more up-to-date on clinical guidelines. (more…)
Author Interviews, Duke, Electronic Records, Health Care Systems, JAMA / 20.04.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Eugenia McPeek Hinz MD MS FAMIA Associate CMIO - DHTS Duke University Health System MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Clinician burnout rates have hovered around 50% for much of the past decade.  Burnout is a significant concern in healthcare for its effects on care givers and associated downstream adverse implications on patient care for quality and safety. The ubiquitous presence of Electronic Health Records (EHR) along with the increased clerical components and after hours use has been a significant concern for contributing to provider burnout.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Surgical Research / 03.11.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Pravesh S. Gadjradj, MD Department of Neurosurgery, Leiden University Medical Center, University Neurosurgical Center Holland Leiden, Netherlands neurosurgery brain surgery ct scan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Many healthcare professionals throughout the world face issues surrounding medical malpractice at some point in their careers. Unfortunately, a number of these cases turn into medical malpractice lawsuits. As a specialty that treats acute pathology and refractory pain, neurosurgery is at risk for high liability. By the means of a survey among members of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS), we aimed to illustrate how malpractice lawsuits affect neurosurgeons professionally, emotionally and financially.   MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?  Response: Some 490 members of the CNS shared their experiences with us. Among these members, 81% faced a medical malpractice lawsuit. The main concerns expressed about being sued included losing confidence and practicing defensive medicine, personal assets being at risk, and being named in the National Practitioner Data Bank. Of the respondents, 40% stated they were frequently or always concerned about being sued, and 77 % stated their fear had led to a change in how they practice medicine. For 58 %, this change led to the practice of defensive medicine, while for others it led to more extensive documentation (14%) and/or to referring or dropping complex cases (12%). Given the medical malpractice environment, 59% of respondents considered referring complex patient cases, whereas 37% considered leaving the practice of medicine. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Gender Differences, JAMA / 13.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Shannon Ruzycki, MD, MPH, FRCPC, (she/hers) General Internist & Clinical Lecturer Department of Medicine Department of Community Health Sciences Cumming School of Medicine University of Calgary MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: After hearing about the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine 2018 report to congress on sexual harassment of women in academia, our Department Head asked myself and Dr. Aleem Bharwani to study experiences of gender inequity or equity in our Department. We conducted an in-depth, 18-month mixed methods study of women and men in our Department, including semi-structured interviews and survey. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gender Differences, JAMA, Mental Health Research, UCSF / 31.01.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Christina Mangurian, MD MAS Professor Department of Psychiatry, Weill Institute for Neurosciences Center for Vulnerable Populations, University of California, San Francisco Veronica Yank, MD Assistant Professor Division of General Internal Medicine Department of Medicine University of California San Francisco MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: This article is about the behavioral health and burnout consequences among physician mothers who are caring for seriously ill loved ones. Our work was inspired, in part, by some of the authors’ own experiences caring for loved ones with serious illnesses while also being physician mothers themselves.  We sought to determine the proportion of physician mothers with such caregiving responsibilities beyond their patients and children and the how these additional responsibilities affected the women’s health and practice. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Outcomes & Safety / 07.09.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Maria Panagioti, Senior Research Fellow Division of Population Health Health Services Research & Primary Care University of Manchester Manchester  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Several studies have shown that the demanding work environment has alarming consequences on the well-being of physicians. Over 50 percent of physicians experience significant signs of burnout across medical specialities. However, the consequences of burnout on patient care are less well-known. This is the largest meta-analysis to date which pooled data from 43,000 doctors to examine the relationship between burnout in physicians and patient safety, professionalism and patient satisfaction. We found that burnout in physicians is associated with two times increased risk for patient safety incidents, reduced professionalism and lower patient satisfaction. Particularly in residents and early career physicians, burnout was associated with almost 4 times increased risk for reduced professionalism.  (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ / 11.02.2015

Christopher Michael Petrilli MD Division of General Internal Medicine The Department of Medicine University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MichiganMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Christopher Michael Petrilli MD Division of General Internal Medicine The Department of Medicine University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan   Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Petrilli: Our team took note of the broad spectrum of physician attire that was worn in health care settings. We found a lack of specific guidance with regards to “appropriate” physician attire. Then we began to find anecdotal evidence that physician attire may be an important early determinant of patient confidence, trust and satisfaction. Studies have shown that patients are more compliant with their medications and treatment regimens when they perceive their doctors as being competent, supportive and respectful. Therefore, given the increasingly rushed patient–physician encounter, the ability to gain a patient’s trust and confidence are highly desirable. We hypothesized that if physician attire matched patients’ preferences and expectations, it would improve the overall patient experience. Our findings supported our hypothesis. In general, we found that people prefer their physicians dress on the formal side -- and definitely not in casual wear. Doctors of either gender in suits, or a white coat, are more likely to inspire trust and confidence. But fashion takes a back seat when it comes to emergency, surgical or critical care, where data show clothes don't matter as much -- and patients may even prefer to see doctors in scrubs. In general, Europeans and Asians of any age, and Americans over age 50, trusted a formally dressed doctor more, while Americans in Generation X and Y tended to accept less-dressy physicians more willingly. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Health Care Systems / 28.10.2014

Luís A. Nunes Amaral PhD HHMI Early Career Scientist Professor of Chemical & Biological Eng. Professor of Medicine Howard Hughes Medical Institute Northwestern University, Evanston, IllinoisMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Luís A. Nunes Amaral PhD HHMI Early Career Scientist Professor of Chemical & Biological Eng. Professor of Medicine Howard Hughes Medical Institute Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Amaral: There is a well known difficulty in promoting the rapid adoption of best practices by physicians.  Because of their work load and because of the inability to figure out when some result is a true advance or just hype, doctors tend to stick to what they believe works. Unfortunately, as a 15 year old Institute of Medicine study shows, this lack of adoption of best practices costs society hundreds of thousands of lives a year in the US alone. The typical process for informing doctors of what best practices are (such as continual medical education and other broadcasting approaches) do not work well. We believe that a weakness of typical approaches is that they have a one talking to the many style, and they are out of a medical practice context.  Our hypothesis was that by seeding a few doctors with desired knowledge, one could have spread of the adoption through one-on-one contacts between physicians in the context of treating patients.  We found that this approach has the potential to be very effective. (more…)