Carolyn Keyes

What California Healthcare Policy Tells Us About the Future of US Health From the perspective of a practicing physician, the California regulatory environment may serve as an indicator of what lies ahead for the health care system.

When I first learned I would be matriculating to a medical school, I envisioned myself becoming an excellent clinician who would catch details like no other. I looked forward to the day I would be recognized as a master diagnostician. Yet as I began my studies, I found a clear limitation in what one doctor can accomplish. Seeing patients and attending to their chief concerns had a profound impact on me and felt rewarding.

Residency teaches you many things at once: how to think critically under pressure, how to care for patients during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives, and how to absorb feedback while functioning on very little sleep. What no one talks about enough is how much time trainees spend trying to decode feedback rather than learn from it. Let me set the scene: it’s the end of a long week.