Scope Blog

Scope is an award-winning medical blog produced by a team of writers at Stanford University School of Medicine.

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Sep192017

Dean Lloyd Minor shares leadership lessons at Medicine X

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After graduating from medical school, Lloyd Minor, MD, now dean of School of Medicine, spent more than a decade honing his medical and research skills, developing the ability to independently and confidently perform ear surgery. But then, in his first faculty position, he was charged with leading a lab and transferring his skills to his students. “I realized my ability to advance the field… was more dependent on those around me than it was about me. It made me think about what was involved in leadership,” Minor said at a masterclass session at Medicine X over the weekend that packed a classroom with a standing room only crowd. He said he approached leadership “with the same degree of vigor and intellectual curiosity as a student.” And he learned — through …Read more

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Sep182017

Barriers in health care for people with disabilities: It’s not what you think

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On the final day of Stanford Medicine X, Alice Wong, founder and project coordinator of the Disability Visibility Project, moderated the poignant, at times humorous, and constructive panel discussion called “Interrogating Accessible Care and Patient Power.” Panel participants included Robin Wilson-Beattie, a disability and sexuality health educator and writer; Ryan Easterly, executive director of the WITH Foundation; and Mary Lou Breslin, co-founder of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF). While they mentioned tangible, perceptible obstacles to care, like the lack of a wheelchair ramp into a building, the attitudes of medical staff, including doctors, was a predominant theme. “Practitioners have the same biases as the public,” said Breslin. And attitudes and associated assumptions are an unseen barrier to care, high-quality or otherwise. Poignant were the panelists’ stories about blatant discrimination …Read more

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Sep192017

Using design thinking to cope with chronic illness

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Design thinking may be able to help us disentangle one of the most perplexing complications in the prevention, management, and treatment of chronic disease: human behavior. At this weekend’s Stanford Medicine X, a workshop called “Design Thinking for Patients with Chronic Illness” introduced participants to design thinking as a methodology to motivate healthy behaviors. Dennis Boyle,…Read more

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Sep192017

“This shouldn’t be the case in 2017”: A call for more research on transgender health

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There’s a pressing need for more research into transgender health issues. That was the argument eloquently laid out at Stanford Medicine X talk this weekend by ePatient Charlie Blotner. As Blotner told attendees, a 2015 survey (.pdf) from the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 23 percent of transgender patients delay or don’t seek care because of fear of discrimination. Of…Read more

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Sep192017

Dean Lloyd Minor shares leadership lessons at Medicine X

on

After graduating from medical school, Lloyd Minor, MD, now dean of School of Medicine, spent more than a decade honing his medical and research skills, developing the ability to independently and confidently perform ear surgery. But then, in his first faculty position, he was charged with leading a lab and transferring his skills to his…Read more

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Sep182017

Boosting physician wellness: Lessons from Stanford at Medicine X

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In a small, informal workshop at Stanford Medicine X on Sunday afternoon, a group of medical students, doctors and others met to discuss one of the biggest problems plaguing health care today: physician burnout. By some measures, it affects more than half of all U.S. physicians — and that figure is growing. “When you are…Read more

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Sep182017

Grief in the time of social media

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When Alexis Roberts Keiner’s 9-week-old son died unexpectedly at day care in 2012, “we had to choose very quickly what kind of bereaved family we were going to be.” She shared her story with attendees of an emotional panel on grief in the digital age, moderated by ePatient Liza Bernstein, at this weekend’s Stanford Medicine X…Read more