Once a month, she waits patiently in my exam room, despite the fact that I’m almost always running an hour late in my hectic community health center practice. She is 86 and suffers from mild dementia, diabetes, arthritis and an arrhythmia for which she takes warfarin, a powerful blood thinner. At every visit, she comes to me with some sort of homemade gift — a scarf, a tin of cookies, …
Jennifer was one of my first patients as a new doctor, and she came to see me about an unintended pregnancy. A single mom to a rambunctious 5-year-old girl, Jennifer was struggling economically and battling depression. We talked about the options available to her: continuing the pregnancy and preparing to parent another child, offering the baby for adoption or having an abortion. She chose to continue with the pregnancy, and …
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