J.L. Lycette's Blog, page 4

Galadriel, Girl, You’re Being Gaslit

( Spoiler warning : contains minor spoilers for the first few episodes of The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power, on Amazon Prime)

Galadriel, you may be the Elf Commander of the Northern Armies, the Warrior of the Wastelands, and the Lady of the woods of Lothlórien, but I am a human woman and, therefore, in a unique position to teach you something (perhaps the only thing) mortal women know better than Elven women: gaslighting.

What is this gaslighting I speak of? No, it’s not a light for ...

Using OpenAI to generate art about healthcare burnout, help write (this very) blog post, and predict the consequences of Elon Musk buying Twitter

This weekend, after seeing others on social media post images from openAI’s DALL-E-2 art generator, I decided to give it a try.

After thinking on a topic that (1) I am interested in, (2) others are interested in, and (3) I was curious to see an AI’s ability to interpret, I decided on the topic of healthcare burnout.

In the prompt field, I entered “healthcare burnout doctors nurses exhausted hope love disease dystopian digital art”

(The site recommends adding the terms “digital art”).

...

Seven things I learned on Twitter, no matter what happens next

What Twitter has meant to meI joined Twitter in September of 2019. A Gen-X holdout, it was my first foray into a social media platform.

(If this sounds crazy to you, it was because during the MySpace and Facebook years, I was mired in medical training and then with “balancing” a career and young family, and the idea of spending more time on a computer was not my idea of a productive way to spend my limited free time).

So, what changed in 2019?

I had finished writing a novel, and...

What if Elon Musk was in charge of your healthcare?

It’s not as farfetched as you might think.

I’m willing to bet you would consider it more possible now than if I’d asked you this question six months ago.

What if, in the near-future, AI algorithms in healthcare advance to the point where corporate-owned conglomerations rely on the AI to determine who gets medical treatment — and who doesn’t? All with the goal of making healthcare more “cost-effective.”

Six years ago I started writing a book with this very question in mind. Well, not thi...

Are you a human healthcare worker in an airborne virus pandemic or an Elven commander in Middle-Earth trying to convince everyone that Sauron’s still a threat?

(A list in the satirical style of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency)

Everyone around you has stopped believing something dangerous is out there because they can’t see it with the naked eye.You’ve seen people die from it, and your life will never be the same, but those who haven’t lost someone don’t see the big deal and want to “return to normal.”You’ve made it your mission to help all people anyway because it’s the right thing to do, but some people only hate you more for your dedication...

AITA for Pointing Out to the Insurance Company That I’m the Expert on My Patient?

(A parody, except happening everywhere.)

I (48, F) had to do one of those “peer-to-peer” calls with an insurance physician (undisclosed-age, M). I know, it’s a commonplace task now, what’s the big deal, etc., but let me explain.

From the start of the conversation, tons of red flags. First of all, he won’t tell me what specialty he is. And I’m like, “Okay, that’s kind of weird, but can you at least tell me if you’re an oncologist?” Then he asks, “Why does that matter?” So I say, “It matters...

Is It a Physician’s Job to Make Their Patients ‘Happy?’

My patient is older and hard of hearing, and masks aren’t helping the situation. I raise my voice so he can hear me, which means I lose a lot of nuance and expression in my tone. Within a few minutes, he allows his mask to droop below his nose, as if trying to show me I should do the same — a common occurrence and why I wear a fit-tested N95 for all patient encounters.

I ignore the sagging mask and do my best to answer his questions, but he doesn’t allow me to complete a sentence. He’s angry,...

A Good Doctor Must (A Poem)

Originally published on Medscape Blogs on June 8, 2022

Last week, after the multiple recent tragedies in our nation, I found myself turning to my laptop to write the feelings that were too big. But instead of my usual prose essay form, what came out was a poem. I also had been thinking a lot about the early pandemic phrase “scream inside your heart”; the following is what emerged:

Scream inside your heart
Scream inside your heart
A good doctor must always keep the screams inside

Too many bull...

What It’s Like to Be a Cancer Physician in America

“We only want to hear positive information.”

“Don’t tell him about his prognosis.”

“We don’t want to hear any doom or gloom.”

This is what it’s like to be a cancer physician in America.

As a medical oncologist, I spend much of my time helping people navigate the (for many) uncharted waters of uncertainty and bad news. Even and especially when it’s not what people want to hear.

But over the past 2 years, the amount of misinformation and disinformation I have to refute and debunk in...