What if there was an infection that can cause permanent nerve damage and pain? What if the virus could affect the eye and cause blindness or affect the brain and cause meningitis? What if the burning rash attacks almost half of all Americans sometime in their life? If you knew there was a vaccine which could protect you from that malady, would you get the shot? The disease is called ...
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I feel guilty about the killings in Colorado. As a doctor, those horrid events are a personal failure. I have spent a career fighting illness, often investing hundreds of hours in a single cancer case, yet in minutes, a dozen people vanish and 58 are grievously wounded. Another 32,000 will die this year from gunshots, over 76,000 will be crippled and ...
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Steve is lying almost flat in the hospital room, an IV attached to his arm. I am happy to see he is more comfortable, last night’s crisis has passed. He smiles as I enter and walk to his side. I touch his hand as I sit down on the pressed clean blanket. And then … a shrill loud wail breaks the silence … lights flash above his bed … fear ...
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When we love someone, we want for them the best. We fight for and with them. We push them to attack disease. Is it possible that our very love can cause suffering? Can we mistake our eternal love for each other with a futile fight for immortality? Does our caring crush the ones for whom we care?
In a fascinating article, the Wall Street Journal followed the terminal case of ...
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Today would have been easier if I did not give a damn. Easier if patients were clients. Easier if medical advice was causal suggestion. Easier if I believed that patients were solely responsible for their health. Easier if suffering was not real. Much easier, if I did not care.
However, despite the popular movement from “the doctor knows best” towards shared decision-making, I feel responsible for my patients. What happens to ...
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There was a night when I was in training that all the decisions, disasters and chaos, which are the practice of medicine, caught up to me. In those dark hours, I felt practically despondent. What I had seen left me in tears and overwhelmed by the tasks in front of me.
At that moment a wise attending physician took a moment to sit with me. Rather than tell me how wonderful ...
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He had yellow nails, leather neck, stained teeth and a deep cough. He wheezed slightly, breathed too quickly and occasionally sprinkled the white handkerchief red. No surprise his ticket to my office was a lung mass to match. We talked about tests, treatment and prognosis. About the future, probably short. Devastated, he was not surprised. He was reaping the reward of 30 smoking years. He sadly admitted, “I knew better, ...
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On the day we cure cancer I will rise in morning dark. I will stand in last night cold, and watch stars fade. The light will come and a following breeze blow. On that incredible dawn, there will be brilliance. I will make sunrise rounds on the day we cure cancer.
I will stay late and breakfast with my wife. We will talk about flowers, kids and books. I will stand ...
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There was no mistake, but a bad thing has happened. Despite the best efforts of the doctors, Bob’s wife is very sick. Due to a rare side effect of treatment, her liver is failing. Bob believes this could have been prevented. He is very mad.
“When we go to see the doctor, he stares at the computer,” says Bob. “He does not look at us. Most of the time, the doctor ...
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It is hard to lie to patients who are dying. To look a fellow human in the eye and tell them “everything will be OK,” is painful. To give treatment that is unlikely to work is emotionally exhausting. To watch someone die having never been honest causes burnout.
Denying the obvious spread of disease conflicts with what the patient perceives, and what the doctor knows. Even though the goal is to ...
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"A comprehensive and extremely useful roadmap for doctors."
-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
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Past 6 Months
Dear lawmakers: This is what it’s like to be a doctor today
Matthew Moeller, MD | PhysicianA gun owner responds to Sandy Hook
Edwin Leap, MD | PhysicianIs Chris Christie too obese to run for president?
Jeffrey Parks, MD | PhysicianIf I’m wrong about guns, can you please explain why?
Claire McCarthy, MD | PhysicianPrimary care doctors may no longer be needed
Doug Olson, MD | PhysicianWalgreens moves into primary care, and it’s our own damn fault
Kevin Pho, MD | Kevin's Take