A Call to Restore Your Calling: Self-Care of the Emergency Physician in the Face of Life-Changing Stress-Part 3 of 6: Physician Illness and Impairment.

Physicians suffer from most medical conditions at the same rate as their lay peers. However, physicians' self-care is often sacrificed for patient care. This third article in our series examines physician and trainee illness and impairment. Presenteeism, physician impairment, and substance use disorder (SUD) are defined. We call attention to the potential for harm of dated cultural norms, which often fuel physicians' neglect of their own health and development of ill-advised coping skills.Although any medical condition may become a functional impairment, the primary cause of physician impairment is SUD. Alcohol and prescription opioids top the list of substances used in excess by physicians. Although SUD is less prevalent in residency, we focus on the rise of marijuana and alcohol use in emergency medicine trainees. A nonpunitive model for the prevention and treatment of SUD in residency is described.Physicians are ethically and legally mandated to report any concern for impairment to either a state physician health program or a state medical board. However, recognizing physician SUD is challenging. We describe its clinical presentation, voluntary and mandated treatment tracks, provisions for protecting reporters from civil liability, prognosis for return to practice, and prevention efforts. We underscore the need to model healthy coping strategies and assist trainees in adopting them.In closing, we offer our colleagues and trainees today's to-do list for beginning the journey of reclaiming your health. We also provide resources focused on the practical support of ill and/or impaired physicians.

A Call to Restore Your Calling: Self-care of the Emergency Physician in the Face of Life-Changing Stress-Part 1 of 6.

Few practicing emergency physicians will avoid life-changing stressors such as a medical error, personal illness, malpractice litigation, or death of a patient. Many will be unprepared for the toll they will take on their lives. Some may ultimately experience burnout, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal ideation. Medical education, continuing education, and maintenance of certification programs do not teach physicians to recognize helplessness, moral distress, or maladaptive coping mechanisms in themselves. Academic physicians receive little instruction on how to teach trainees and medical students the art of thriving through life-changing stressors in their career paths. Most importantly, handling a life-changing stressor is that much more overwhelming today, as physicians struggle to meet the daily challenge of providing the best patient care in a business-modeled health care environment where profit-driven performance measures (eg, productivity tracking, patient reviews) can conflict with the quality of medical care they wish to provide.Using personal vignettes and with a focus on the emergency department setting, this 6-article series examines the impact life-changing stressors have on physicians, trainees, and medical students. The authors identify internal constraints that inhibit healthy coping and tools for individuals, training programs, and health care organizations to consider adopting, as they seek to increase physician satisfaction and retention. The reader will learn to recognize physician distress and acquire strategies for self-care and peer support. The series will highlight the concept that professional fulfillment requires ongoing attention and is a work in progress.

Diagnosis of childhood cancer.

Childhood cancer is uncommon but remains the leading cause of disease-related death in children. Symptoms are often vague or insidious; they may suggest a more common alternative diagnosis, and they are quite different from those associated with adult malignancy. The skilled office practitioner must consider cancer as a diagnosis when symptoms/signs persist or when multiple symptoms point toward a possible diagnosis of malignancy. Early diagnosis is critical, as survival rates have increased dramatically over the past decades. Prolonged delay in diagnosis is common, especially for brain tumors and certain lymphomas (Hodgkin disease). When one encounters symptoms suspicious for a childhood malignancy, it is imperative that the child be referred to a pediatric cancer center. These centers possess not only the ability to further evaluate and manage children with malignancy, but also are able to provide support for patients and their families. This evaluation may include further imaging, but often involves obtaining tissue for histologic review. This will require appropriate tumor or bone marrow biopsy, preferably before the start of treatment. Depending upon the type of suspected malignancy, direct tumor biopsy can be facilitated by imaging-guided biopsy (ultrasound, CT, or MRI), which spares the patient additional surgery. This optimally is performed by a skilled team: hematologist/oncologist, surgeon, radiologist, and pathologist. Best results depend upon early referral by the thoughtful practitioner.

CONSENSUS CONFERENCE REPORT ON LIVER* TRANSPLANTATION.

Liver transplantation has been developed to the point of a service operation, the exploitation of which depends upon the establishment of multiple regional centers. The increased use of this procedure will permit the delivery of optimum health care to victims of end stage liver disease.