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An excerpt from Spicebox Kitchen: Eat Well and Be Healthy with Globally Inspired, Vegetable-Forward Recipes. Eating well is about food and health, but equally also celebration and community. There is a world of flavor, and the passport is spices. I connected my lifelong love of food and cooking to my work as a physician eight years ago, when I ...

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Canadians with serious or progressive chronic illness are feeling especially vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has underscored how quickly circumstances can change.

Talking about a serious illness diagnosis and the impact on life expectancy is difficult.

Many Canadians are uncomfortable having these conversations, even though they know it is important.

Surveys have uncovered this paradox: while 93 percent of ...

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"Ultimately, patient care is at the center of medicine and is the main reason many physicians chose to go into the field. A good understanding of the business side of medicine and personal finance can help future physicians focus on just that. There are plenty of options when it comes to how ...

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As I embark on my chief year in general surgery, I look forward to most is taking junior residents through operations. I am grateful to have had excellent teachers over the past five years, and I appreciate the opportunity to pay forward this mentorship. But taking what you have learned and teaching someone else turns out to be a very different challenge than learning itself! Suddenly, you realize your attendings ...

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It’s easy to get distracted by the demands of the journey in medicine. Today physicians now see patients in person and virtually.  Technology allows docs to bring work home and complete documentation remotely, which can blur the lines between work and home life. It’s completely natural that physicians experience more stress and less success, as the demands seem never-ending. Success is right where you are in this very moment.  But success becomes ...

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Today I attempt to walk a new path in life, a path that sparkles from the sun above to guide my every move. Step by step, I embrace the light and escape the dark shadow behind me. Slowly, I start to run as I crave harder to escape my unburdening. With the weight of sorrow on my back, I let it go and reach in front for the chamber in my ...

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"There should be no grades in medical school. Forty-something percent of applicants get accepted to one or more medical schools. To even apply to medical school, one needs to have not only graduated or be on track to graduate college, but also needs to have passed the MCAT and have the support ...

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There are endless life lessons to learn from people around us. Our friends’ opinions on what they think about a product, a certain cuisine, or how they view life not only gives us a glimpse of who they are, but also can impact our own views. As a doctor, it is always fascinating to me how two patients with the same oncologic diagnosis can have such different views of life: ...

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I will speak for myself to say that I completely identified with, and fully agree with, all the sentiments shared by Dr. Klingberg in “A breakup with primary care.” Still, from my own life experiences, and a 30-year career in primary care solo practice, I have been forced to believe that these sentiments are ultimately narcissistic and self-destructive. Yes, primary care medicine has become thankless, oppressive, cruel, ...

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I have been a physician for 26 years. I have been a fierce patient advocate throughout my entire career. It never occurred to me that physicians do not have the same rights of citizenship that the very patients I fight for do. I always thought I lived in a democracy. Medicine is not what it used to be. Articles relentlessly speak of physician burnout as though we are responsible for ...

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"Have you ever watched a movie, television show, or read a book where the villain is a medical doctor? If you are a psychiatrist, you will be alarmed by how many times the villain in these stories turns out to be a psychiatrist. In all fairness, psychiatry has had its share ...

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We first met about two years ago when she came to see me in my clinic as a new patient. I glanced through her chart and reviewed her scans and pathology reports. She had one of the worst possible kinds of lung cancers, called small cell lung cancer, that had spread to both of her lungs. Her disease was incurable, but I could give her chemotherapy to improve her symptoms ...

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As a physician who helps administer and analyze our medical staff's wellness data, I have been puzzled by one consistent finding from our semi-annual physician wellness survey - the group of physicians with the highest level of distress are the mid-career physicians, those who, like me, graduated from medical school 15 to 24 years ago. Our hospital, a community-based, semi-academic hospital, utilizes a nine-question survey to track physician's well-being.  Some of ...

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You should like your doctor. Whether or not you like your doctor matters.  It matters because if you don't like your doctor, you're not going to be honest and forthcoming.  Your doctor needs you to be honest and forthcoming to take good care of you.  And you want good care. But, realistically, you may not like your doctor.  You figured that was OK.  You probably don't see your doctor that often and ...

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"As a Black physician, I urge you to consider taking the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available to you. Vaccines save lives. Preventing poor outcomes, as in death, is an exciting effect of this vaccine.  I will be first in line when it is offered to me, and I hope to see ...

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When a patient is dissatisfied with his or her care, he or she can consult an attorney, who will enlist a physician “expert” to determine if a doctor has deviated from the standard of care and whether that deviation caused a negative outcome. Over the past decade of reviewing cases involving medical malpractice, I have identified five categories of medical error, which has improved how I care for my patients. 1. ...

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I’m “blursed.” I have a loving and supportive family, an amazing wife, great friends, and that includes my dog, a career that is both secure and fulfilling, and yet there is something I carry with me that perpetually threatens to break my spirit. My fellow Reddit fans/addicts know the meaning of "blursed," but for those that don't, it's one of my favorite portmanteaus - it means to be both "blessed" ...

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As a physician and businessperson who has dedicated his career to improving health equity, I consider news about vaccines going into arms bittersweet. An uncomfortable question remains: Whose arms are they going into? Data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services points to an inequitable rollout. White, non-Hispanic Americans are receiving more than their equitable portion of vaccines, while Black and Hispanic/Latinx Americans are receiving ...

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"It is not enough to say we are anti-racist; we have to modify our systems to recognize that we have placed individuals of color at risk of poorer outcomes.  Lack of insurance, lack of finances, or even the presence of certain diagnoses may reflect less about the person and more about our ...

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