Moving day!

After more than 3 years and 80 posts, I've finally decided to make a move.

Shab's Sanatorium will be moving to Wordpress!

This site with all my old posts will certainly remain here, but I encourage you to explore the new home and new posts here...

https://shabssanatorium.wordpress.com/ (It's prettier!)

Thanks to Blogger for getting me started with my blogging! I truly appreciate it!

Thanks to everyone who has spent a few minutes here. I look forward to seeing you again at the new location!

Sincerely

Shabbir Hossain MD FACP

#IstandwithAhmed

      Around 1991, as a 7th grader, my fascination with science far exceeded my prepubescent fascination with girls. For that year's science project, I decided to explore the world of energy by exploring traditional sources (i.e. fossil fuels) and looking at potential future sources (solar, nuclear etc.). I did a comprehensive report, doing most of my research at libraries (you know those buildings that housed books!). I also did a lot of reading in encyclopedia Britannica (RIP!). In addition to a comprehensive 15 page written report, my teacher suggested everyone bring something in class that could demonstrate what we had learned.

       I was impressed with what I had discovered about nuclear energy and decided to bring an orange to class to demonstrate the processes of nuclear fission and fusion. Standing in front of a class of 30 snickering and giggly teenagers, I explained how the orange was an atom and splitting it (fission) would create juice i.e. nuclear energy. Conversely, smashing together the separated pieces would also result in a citrus shower i.e. nuclear fusion. And with that explanation, I put on one of our science aprons, a pair of our chemistry goggles and aggressively smashed my orange down the middle using a knife I brought from home. 

      Those early teenage years were hard enough as it was. But I fondly remember this because it reminds me of my love for science and one of the early examples of how I overcame shyness and insecurity to stand in front of an audience. I wouldn't have recalled this moment were it not for the story of a young Muslim teenager and science tinkerer from Irving, Texas who was arrested like a common criminal for bringing a homemade clock to school. 

HuffPost Article 

    I am frightened to think what would've happened today if I tried to do a science demonstration by bringing a knife to class. I probably wouldn't even had made it through the school doors because of metal detectors. The mere sight of young Muslim male with paper thin arms, wielding a butter knife would've resulted in a SWAT team descending upon my school to whisk me away in handcuffs. My parents and sister would be intensely interrogated and humiliated. With the rampant bigotry and xenophobia going around today, maybe my parents would think seriously about going back to Bangladesh. Or if we stayed with the stain of being a suspected criminal, would I have the courage to continue to pursue my passions or just settle into a life of acceptance of the old (and now reborn?) American reality that perhaps all men are not created equal. 

   But something terrible did happen to me on that fateful day in 1991 where I brought a knife to class. I got a "B" on my mediocre report which drew the intense ire of my parents. It was probably one of those sentinel moments that are emotionally magnified as a teenager which led me to work harder in pursuit of my goals. But what happened to Ahmed is far worse than a bad grade on a science project. I hope with the same intelligence that he uses to create, tinker and build, he is able to realize that it's not his fault he was born in the post 9/11 world. And that regardless of how the world may view him and try to bring him down, this is still a great country where someone bright and hardworking like him will have the opportunity to become successful, make a difference and change many hearts and minds.

     

Twitter Grand Rounds

     I'm currently into my 2nd week of life here at UTSW with most of my time committed to orientation related things. But today, I was able to resume one of my favorite activities as an academic internist which is attend departmental grand rounds. It's great because the numerous disciplines in internal medicine all gather in one place to hear a respected colleague discuss important research, clinical and non clinical topics in medicine. Today's grand rounds was especially noteworthy because it was given by someone within my own division (general internal med) on the unique topic of secondary cancers in adult survivors of pediatric cancers. As always, it was informative and captured my full attention.
   But grand rounds wasn't always as exciting for me. As a junior faculty in my prior institution I would find myself sitting there at 8 AM, staring at power point slides desperately trying to keep focused or even stay awake. Despite interesting topics and engaging noteworthy speakers, I didn't get much out of it. That was until I entered the world of Twitter and became fully engaged in grand rounds by live tweeting. From that moment, grand rounds became an active fun event instead of a passive attempt at learning (an experience far too familiar from my days in medical school). Twitter became my platform for self learning and engagement as well as an opportunity to share important medical advances and concepts with the world at large. I looked forward to learning and the challenge of feverishly tweeting key facts and themes. Soon, other faculty members, house-staff and medical students became involved as we developed a virtual back channel conversation each morning of grand rounds.
   Now after having left my prior institution for several months I've resumed my live tweeting of grand rounds, having learned several interesting things about pediatric cancer survivors and their heightened risks of adult cancer. In that process, I'm confident, a few others out there in the Twitterverse have a learned a few things as well.  And like most things in social media, the connections we make are a two way street. There are many others out there, doing what I'm doing, sharing their knowledge via social media in an effort to connect our minds and expertise for the purposes of improving medicine.

@SBinternalMed
Twitter account run by former colleagues with tweets from grand rounds, noon conferences and much more!

#foamed
Free open access medical education hashtag.

#meded
Medical Education hashtag

#grandrounds
A generic hashtag of all kinds of grand rounds across the world.

@shabbirhossain
My twitter account

Sir William Osler conducting Grand Rounds

(courtesy of the medical archives at Johns Hopkins University)

Faces of the J Train

It's been about 10 months since I left New York ; the city, the state, the place of my birth. And on the eve of celebrating the 1st birthday of my daughter back where it all started, I'm thinking about all the experiences here that made me who I am, When it comes to medicine, my career in primary care started on the New York City Subways and the J train.

    One of the few largely above ground subways, The J train continues to click, clack, roll and tumble through a myriad of diverse neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan. From 1992 to 1999 (high school and college) I made the daily sojourn into Manhattan, using the hour of time to catch up on sleep, spanish homework, chapters of Homer's Odyssey or complete assignments for organic chemistry. What I enjoyed most of this experience was simply sitting back with my AIWA walkman (Discman later) and observing the faces of the crowd. In a city so large, the faces and the stories were rarely the same.

    My trip started in a rapidly evolving middle class neighborhood in Queens. The area was in the midst of a "white flight" as caucasians slowly moved to parts further east as south asians and west indians moved in to begin their immigrant lives, struggling to fulfill their american dreams. As the train rolled west and into Brooklyn, tree lined streets gave way to boarded up apartment buildings, police sirens and general urban decay. This was East New York, a place defined by poverty, drugs and violence. The faces from here looked like any other, but they hid struggles unique to this neighborhood . Further west, the J train passed through Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods where the modern world clashed daily with religious and cultural traditions. And finally before crossing over to Manhattan, the train would pass through Williamsburg where the struggle to survive gentrification was only just beginning.

    I no longer live in NY and ride the subways. But as a physician each day continues to feel like a subway rides except now I am the conductor that's picking up patients, helping them get to their destination.  And just like back in the day, I try to read their faces, understand their struggles by listening to their story. But as a primary care physician I recognize their struggle isn't simply about what part of their body hurts or what disease currently plagues them. There struggles are a composite of their illness, their life stories, their backgrounds and the streets and people in their neighborhood that helped forge their identity. And healing isn't simply about mending a broken bone, stitching up a wound or completing a course of antibiotics. Healing is about helping the patient cross the Williamsburg bridge, into Manhattan so that they can live to carry on for another day.

The Trail of Tears

     It's been about a week since I completed my locum tenens assignment for the Chickasaw Nation and Indian Health Services (IHS) in Southern Oklahoma. Looking back, I keep thinking about what a privilege it was to participate in a special part of American history. If I didn't go into medicine, I probably would've become a history teacher. I was tempted to try to double major in biology and history but it wasn't  feasible and stuck with the former. But in all levels of my education, I really enjoyed learning about the world, past present and future. But sadly, our education system is deeply deficient in teaching about native american history. It is one of the darkest aspects of this nation's history that I never fully appreciated. But now, many years removed from college, armed with years of life and medical experience,  I was able to once again learn and appreciate some history.
   Briefly, in the 1830's the U.S. Federal government forcibly relocated several Native American tribes who lived east of the Mississippi river. Amongst this group of tribes were the Chickasaw who lived a healthy and peaceful agrarian life in the Mississippi river valley. The journey west towards an undeveloped, less hospitable land (modern day Oklahoma) was wrought with danger, starvation and death. There was also the tremendous psychological toll of a people forcibly removed from their ancestral home. This journey by the Chickasaw and many other tribes was referred to as "The Trail of Tears."
    Fast forward almost 200 years, these tribes are slowly recovering from this painful past. In my recent work as a primary care provider, I personally saw the sequelae of the Trail of Tears manifest as a myriad of modern healthcare problems. At it's root is poverty. Once forcibly relocated, the tribes immediately went from a self sustaining agrarian society to a broken, poor and dependent community with little to their name except undeveloped Oklahoma land. Without the ability to subsist off the land, the federal government tried to fulfill their obligations by providing cheap unhealthy food rations and not much else. Generations later, these native american tribes became a people struggling with obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemia and all their terrible manifestations that I personally took care of on a daily basis. In addition to the metabolic diseases, mental illness, violence  and alcoholism took a foothold in these disrupted communities and have wreaked havoc for generations. Furthermore, it wasn't only until the 1950's that the Indian Health Services was established to help provide access to healthcare for the Native americans and their specific health needs.
     Many years later since the establishment of the IHS, I found myself working in a beautiful office building in Southern Oklahoma, emblazoned with the insignia of the Chickasaw nation. The building was new, a symbol of a society's recovery and hope to treat many of the ailments rooted so deeply in the darkness of native American history. And in that building, were hundreds of people (many of whom were native Chickasaws) working tirelessly to take care of their own people (and members of other Indian tribes). Although as a locum tenens physician  I played a minuscule role in this renaissance, I felt quite proud to have been a part of a history that will one day read much brighter and hopeful than the descriptions of the Trail of Tears.

The Chickasaw Nation

The Chickasaw Nation Wikipedia
Trail of Tears Wikipedia

Indian Health Service

Another day, another shooting

Another day, and another senseless act of gun violence.

I sat down tonight to start writing about my experiences working as a locums primary care physician in the heartland of America and the Indian Health Services.

There's a lot to write about, in terms of the myriad of chronic diseases facing this population and the stressed healthcare services that's trying to care for them.

Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, tobacco abuse, alcohol abuse, obesity etc etc.

I forgot about one particular epidemic until I received a push notification on my phone about the shooting in Lafayette, Lousiana.

Another city, different from where I'm working but still uniquely American, trying to persevere through violence perpetrated by some who believe was just a person. Other's who will attest he's a person who culturually and perhaps legally was allowed to obtain an unneccssary appendage of violence.

In tragedy, the natural tendency is for people to come together.
When it comes to tragedy from gun violence, we seem to grow further apart as a nation, debating the merits of a vestigial amendment. This too, another uniquely American reality.

Another shooting and another night of mourning.

"My dad says I'm disabled"

In my last post, I mentioned how I discovered a few things I had started writing before I had this blog. The following is something I started to write after my experience as a part-time disability examination provider for a national company. It wasn't an opportunity that I particularly enjoyed, but with a mountain of debt to repay right out of residency, I decided to give it a try.

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“My dad says I’m disabled”

      Room number 2 was the one. It was worth coming in 15 minutes early just to grab that spot. With 12 hours of monotony from 22 patients getting disability evaluations, the view from that room (and the extra income) made this day worthwhile. In between patients, I would place my palms on the one way panoramic window to channel the warmth generated by the Arizona sun shining down on the black facade of this nondescript office building.  From the 10th floor, I took full advantage of my peripheral vision by taking in the seemingly endless hills, mountains and blue skies. Such mental escapes were fleeting and constantly interrupted by patients trying to make a case to qualify for government assistance.

      I always took the time to review the charts the night before. It allowed me to be more efficient and objective the day of the exam. Whatever skepticism I had about each patient’s claim, I would try not to bring it to the office. I constantly reminded myself that it was my job to make an honest assessment of their medical conditions.  It was up to the government to ultimately determine if they qualified for disability payments. Most of the patients had chronic debilitating illnesses and I knew no matter what I wrote in in my assessment, they would probably qualify.

        When I read Jaina’s file the night before, I felt disappointed but also grateful. I couldn't believe a 20 year old with only depression and obesity would want to and try to qualify for disability. But I also realized this would be an easy visit that I could work through quickly and make up the time spent on more complicated patients. If the day became too long or frustrating, I would try to convince myself that I was performing a public service by helping determine if tax payer dollars should be used to support these patients.

      When I actually saw Jaina my skepticism was unfortunately confirmed. She walked in and sat next to me without any difficulty. My physical exam revealed nothing despite her assertion that knee and back pain limited her capability to work. My conversation with her had clues that her depression is what really limited her. She had a morose look to her face and struggled making eye contact. She was diagnosed by her primary care physician but had poor follow-up with him. She also hadn’t been referred to any mental health services which made me think if her depression was better managed, it wouldn’t be “disabling.” I asked a series of questions in terms of her abilities to do a variety of menial tasks and her answers indicated she could do everything. With each question she must have sensed my increasing skepticism towards her disability claim. At one point she looked away and welled up with tears. I asked her if she was okay when she muttered “I know I can do that stuff, but my dad says I’m disabled.” I paused, unsure what to say. I wanted to delve further but I was running out of time as the proverbial walls started coming up around her. Her answers after that confession was curt and she kept directing me back to her back and knee pain. I eventually had to complete the visit and send her on her way. I felt troubled by what she had just said. I felt even more unsettled thinking about all the things I would never see or understand about Jaina’s life that led to our meeting that day.

In retrospect, as I learned more about medicine and our health care system many things became clearer. I continue to believe she really was clinically depressed. In our perversely broken healthcare system, she probably had difficulty accessing primary care services.  She probably had limited access to mental health services especially ones that could be tailored to patients with specific cultural or language needs. Every day as I continue to see the critical role family plays in both good and bad health, I keep thinking about the injustice Jaina’s father had done to her. A 20 year old physically capable girl should be able to dream big and pursue happiness. Instead, it appeared that her father traded in her self-esteem and hope in exchange for an opportunity to get a few hundred dollars every month from the government. Conversely, I wondered what was going on with the father and his own struggles in our society that would make him take his own daughter down this path.

              It took me only a few minutes after reading her chart to figure out that the odds were against her to qualify for disability. It has taken me years of experience and a single moment to reflect to believe that the odds are against her for a chance at anything at all in this life. 

STICU

Recently, I found a collection of things I had written as a medical student. I didn't have a blog in those days and saved them as Gmail drafts hoping to finish one day. It feels great to discover an old memory, as grim as this one may seem. It’s one of my few distinct memories from my surgery rotation.

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STICU

The alarms forced my body to wake up at 5 AM. By 5:30 AM as day break approached, my body resorted to muscle memory to push the accelerator pedal and turn the steering wheel in order to guide my ugly early 90’s era sedan through the quiet streets of inner city Brooklyn. There was only enough cognition at that hour to determine what color the traffic lights were. Decision making was limited to stop or go. By 5:57 AM, my brain would arrive at 2 rational thoughts. First, I had 3 minutes to make the walk from the parking lot to the STICU. The second completely rational thought was that 3rd year of medical school was making me regret my career choice.

By 6:05 AM, the team collected behind the central counter of the STICU (surgical trauma ICU) and descended upon the resident on-call the preceding night. On this particular night, it was a middle aged, overweight, Turkish anesthesia resident who appeared especially sweaty. From his bloodshot eyes you could tell he was feeling too old to be doing residency all over again here in the United States. Marty, a precocious and social urology resident appearing clean and freshly shaved looked at the exhausted resident and said what the rest of us were all thinking.

“Rough night buddy?”

The on-call resident gave us all a brief look and regretful smile. It was 6:06 AM and although I had been up for over an hour my brain did not register enough of the world to make a reasonable and appropriate response. I wanted to somehow support this resident who had a difficult night but simply couldn’t muster the energy to do anything. In fact, this was as far as I would let my mind explore the emotional realities of being a member of this dungeon. The next 12 hours was not about feeling or learning. It was simply about reacting and doing whatever needed to be done for the 8 occupants of the STICU.

Bed 1: Gastrointestinal bleeding. Draw a blood as soon as the meeting breaks and every 6 hours after that. (I hated drawing blood)

Bed 2: Motorcycle accident: Find out from the pulmonary doctors if he can extubated. (I hoped the pulmonary fellow wouldn’t bark at me for bothering him)

Bed 3: Nasal Bleeder: Ask the ENT doctors if he really needs to be here (More scut work)

Bed 4: Aortic Dissection: Call his pharmacy or family and find out which blood pressure medications he should’ve been on (Even more scut work)

Be 5: Empty. (Mr. Marcellus apparently coded for 45 minutes the night before. The bed looked really comfortable. I didn't care someone had died on it)

Bed 6: Smoke inhalation, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, Sepsis and a deeply pious Orthodox Jewish family. Go to radiology, get a report of today’s x-ray and bring it upstairs. (Apparently, family was in and out of the STICU all night praying at his bedside.) Talk to the family and let them know they can only come inside during visiting hours or if there’s any acute change in his status. (I’m sure a grieving family loved having a 3rd year student restricting access to their loved one)

Bed 7: MICU boarder. Medical ICU patient. Go talk to the medical ICU residents and see if they have a bed available to take her back. (I was sure the answer would be no.)

Bed 8: Liver failure in DIC. Check his labs every 6 hours. (He was a goner, but I knew he’d keep us all busy.)

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Later in the day we coded bed number 8 several times until he died. I remember the final horrific experience of doing chest compressions on his bloated dying body. My arms were tired from several rounds of CPR and my neck became sore from trying to keep my head turned away from his face. After a while, I couldn't stand to see that lifeless zombie stare where instead of words coming from his mouth there was only regurgitated stomach contents. And instead of tears there were only drops of crimson blood oozing from the corners of his eyes, 

Through the entire process, I did what I was told by our code leader. Rather than thinking about what was happening to this poor unfortunate soul, I remember counting the chest compressions in my head wondering how events in my life could've culminated with me bearing witness to this horror.

By 2:30 pm after taking care of some odds and ends, I had the opportunity to go eat lunch. I had to hurry because although Bed #8 was empty now, a replacement for Bed #5 was on the way.

The Half-Full Glass

     Its cliché, but I frequently reference the saying “The glass is always half-full.” There are always unexpected twists and turns in life, and that saying definitely helps me keep a positive outlook on things. I look back at sentinel moments in my life that didn’t go as expected and inevitably most of it turned out extremely positive. For example, although I didn’t get accepted to a US medical school, my experience at an off-shore Caribbean school (SGU) was life altering. Besides a great education I came away with numerous lifelong friends, few of whom became like brothers. After residency, I found limited job opportunities around NewYork City and settled on a position in academics. This was despite swearing during residency never to work in academics! But unexpectedly while surrounded by great mentors, residents and students I developed a passion for medical education that changed my career aspirations. After almost 6 years, I moved to Texas to continue my work in medicine and academics. Although I wanted to hit the ground running, I hit a major roadblock in the form of an unexpected 6 month hiatus from my career.

     While in a bureaucratically imposed exile, disappointment naturally set in as the weeks and months went by. But I resorted to my favorite cliché and two incredible things happened. First, I got to nurture another passion; fatherhood. 

     I remember flipping through my phone on my HuffPost app, coming across an article about the state of parental leave in America. It's sad and disappointing. The following infographic shows how we (the USA) lags behind the rest of the world in taking care of our new parents and the children they've brought into the world.

Paid Parental Leave Infographic (HuffPost)

    My unexpected time off has given me the opportunity to watch my youngest daughter grow through her formative infant months. This has been a precious and memorable "paternity leave" that otherwise would be difficult to attain in our workforce. Furthermore, the medical school debt that physicians carry (a whole other topic!) makes extended parental leave for mothers and fathers a rare luxury. Nevertheless, though it wasn't planned, the time off spent with my darling has been wonderful.

     But at some point, I did have to start working again (bills bills bills!)and fortunately the world of Locum Tenens  (temporary contract work) offered plenty of great opportunities. Although it wouldn't be in academics, this New Yorker suddenly found himself in the middle of rural southern Oklahoma, a new resident of the Chickasaw Indian Nation and a physician for the Indian Health Services.

     Once again, my favorite clichè did not let me down. What started out as simply a need to work is rapidly becoming a unique experience that is giving me new perspectives and insight on medicine, the state of our healthcare system, culture, history and my own abilities as a physician. In the coming weeks and months, as I delve further in this experience, I hope to blog all about it!

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Why I blog

     The best line I ever wrote dealt with grape soda. A shade of fiction, based on real events, I described how during family road trips the cooler seemed to only have grape soda that as an angst ridden teenager, I found it unacceptable. I wrote about this in my 11th grade creative writing english class. It was my first genuine attempt at finding my voice. Learning a variety of writing techniques such as poetry and stream of consciousness I muddled through the semester with a mediocre grade still trying to find a good way to tell a story.
     Over the years life's priorities and the times changed. It wasn't until I got accepted into medical school that this story I had been searching for gathered some substance. The world became smaller and better connected through information technology and it became much easier to find a platform to share that story. And although this blog is only about 3 years old, I always marveled at the incredible world of medicine that I had surrounded myself with. I started to take mental notes about the triumphs and tragedies of patients and the absurdities of our healthcare system. I began to notice the strengths and flaws in our medical education system while opening my mind to envision a better, more technologically fluid world of medicine. And finally about 3 years ago, I took the plunge and started to put my thoughts and memories down on this blog. It has been an incredibly gratifying process ; an important and necessary outlet in a busy life.

“It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” 

― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms."  — Muriel Rukeyser