by Jeremy Topin | May 3, 2018 | Double Effect, End of life, Medical Education, Medicine, Palliative Care
This post was first published on Doximity’s Op-(M)ed “First Stab” Collection on 5/2/18 under the title: Should I Heal or Comfort? Chicago, in February, was dark and cold. Even more so at 5:00 AM, when scraping ice and snow from my windshield before...
by Jeremy Topin | Apr 20, 2018 | Balance, Burnout, Change, Healthcare Reform, Medicine, Parenting, Transformation
How do you know when someone is broken? When their spirit is fractured? When their sense of self no longer aligns with what once was. When you feel as if you have woken up in a foreign land, but that sense of displacement is coming from you, not your surroundings. In...
by Jeremy Topin | Feb 8, 2018 | Balance, Burnout, Medicine
I woke up to a blanket of white covering the ground. Unlike in childhood, this was not met with excited anticipation. Forced to skip my morning coffee, I layered up in my thermal gear and put on my boots, the blister on my heel reminding me to buy a pair that fits...
by Jeremy Topin | Jan 31, 2018 | Balance, Change, Medical, Medicine, Parenting, Transformation
The lob shot. As a goalie, it’s my nemesis. It was my major weakness in college and even more so today. Standing (or more appropriately treading) 6’3″ tall, with an even longer wingspan, I have always been eager and ready to explode up and out of the...
by Jeremy Topin | Oct 17, 2017 | Balance, Burnout, Healthcare Reform, Medical Education, Medicine, Parenting
The day began the same as yesterday. As well as every day prior to that for the last few months. I was tired. Exhausted. The type of fatigue that envelops your brain in a dense fog, altering the way you see and hear the world around you. The type that impairs your...
by Jeremy Topin | Aug 18, 2017 | End of life, Medical Education, Medicine
“Doctor…She wants a chance. She wants to live!” How often have I heard those words? Or some version of them? The location of the conversations varies. I might be standing outside the curtain of an emergency room bay or sitting on a worn chair inside a cramped waiting...
