Arthur Lazarus is a former Doximity Fellow, a member of the editorial board of the American Association for Physician Leadership, and an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. His forthcoming book is titled Every Story Counts: Exploring Contemporary Practice Through Narrative Medicine.
Arthur Lazarus is a former Doximity Fellow, a member of the editorial board of the American Association for Physician Leadership, and an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. His forthcoming book is titled Every Story Counts: Exploring Contemporary Practice Through Narrative Medicine.
In the vast universe of all that has been written, writing about loss, illness, and death is probably second only to writing about intimacy, relationships, and longing. In the world of narrative medicine, the order is reversed. Patients are harnessing the power of writing, sharing, and telling stories of health and sickness using personal narratives to navigate illness, trauma, and grief. The experience of being ill is made less isolating …
What does it take for physicians to practice with conviction – to practice medicine with a sense of confidence and commitment, passionate about your work? What factors allow medical students to enter the resident pool each July and turn their timidness into poise? How do you learn to stand by your medical convictions and base your decision-making on a deep understanding of the patient combined with the latest evidence-based practices? …
I am struck by how often crying is overlooked or trivialized by doctors despite its therapeutic value and need for recognition. Crying can play a significant role in healing and overall well-being. Research has shown that crying serves as an emotional release, provides pain relief, reduces stress, improves mood, and enhances communication. Encouraging a culture of acceptance and understanding around crying in medical settings can contribute to holistic and empathetic …
Viktor Frankl’s Holocaust memoir, Man’s Search for Meaning, is an extraordinary essay on resilience and spirituality, a reminder that human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have meaning. At the risk of mentioning Bob Dylan in the same sentence as Viktor Frankl, it was Dylan who said: “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” I suppose Bob Dylan read the book too, ranked …
Spring is an interesting time of the year for me. April 15 may actually be my favorite day, but certainly not because income taxes are due. My dad was born on April 15, but that’s not the reason either.
Let me set the scene. I lived in a beautiful home in a wooded area outside Philadelphia for ten years. The area is known as the Brandywine Valley. It’s the site of the …
“The balance to fact and analysis is feeling,” our narrative medicine writing instructor informs us. “You’ll find that each poem and essay and story that you write reflects a new aspect of yourself. Be curious about what’s going on. Allow new poems onto the page. Allow free writing in prose and poetry. You have worlds inside you.”
And then, predictably, the homework assignment for next week: “Create and post your ‘800 …
The fallout from the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to ban racially conscious admissions at Harvard and The University of North Carolina has had major repercussions throughout the medical profession. I would say that physicians are highly divided on the issue of affirmative action, with many believing that meritorious performance should determine admission to medical school rather than race and ethnicity. In fact, a Read more…
The medical community was rocked by the United States Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) decision in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and SFFA v. University of North Carolina, et al. The ruling essentially banned race in consideration for admitting students to colleges and universities. Several medical schools and professional organizations retaliated by vowing to continue affirmative action practices, or at least figure …
I’ve finally figured out why we – physicians – are called “providers.” It’s not merely because we render services. In addition, our role has become a commodity, genericized and stripped of autonomy. We are no longer free to practice as we wish. We have lost the ability to take medical matters into our own hands, to control them, and to resolve them ourselves. Having lost ownership of medical practice to …
The recent ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to eliminate race-conscious decision-making from college admissions is being openly challenged by the medical establishment. The American Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the Medical Board of California, and the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) at the University of Hawaii (among others) are continuing efforts to diversify education and medical staffing despite a 6 to …
Medical pundits are predicting that the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down race-conscious admissions will have dire consequences for medical schools and the composition of the physician workforce.
The concern is that the high court’s decision to restrict public and private higher education institutions from considering an applicant’s race or ethnicity in admission decisions will negatively impact medical schools’ diversity and the nature of future physicians.
The fear …
Most of the racially debated issues these days can be summed up by the terms “critical race theory” and “wokeism” – terms that have become the defining issues of our time even though half the people can’t explain them and the other half use them for political gain to dictate how history is taught, stripping it of any mention of slavery, racism, and LGBTQ+ people. So, I’d like to reframe the …
The Philadelphia Inquirer has been covering health inequities and potential remedial solutions for years. One recent story described how a new policy requires that patients’ kidney function be estimated without taking their race into account, highlighting the case of a Black woman whose kidney transplant was delayed five years because the medical center relied on an outdated race-based formula to determine her kidney function, …
As a graduate of Temple University’s medical school and psychiatric residency program, and as a current faculty member, I had the good fortune of studying under highly respected physicians who served not only as chairpersons, but also as presidents, CEOs, and chief medical officers. Anthony (Tony) F. Panzetta, MD, was one of them. Panzetta passed away in 2021 at age 87. As with all great mentors, he had multifaceted talents …
The following article is part satire and part imagination.
The classic poem “Casey at the Bat” delves into the dashed dreams of 5,000 frenzied fans who gathered to watch the “Mudville Nine” play baseball, pinning their hopes on their star player, Casey. Do they have unrealistic expectations of Casey, or is his prowess over-hyped? And what implications does this time-honored poem have for medical practice?
Parables – short stories that teach a …
My brother and I like to swap stories about our medical encounters. I suppose our ages – 69 for me and 74 for him – lead to varied encounters and tales.
“It’s a sh*t-show,” he tells me from his home on Martha’s Vineyard. “No one’s left here on the island. The doctors who remain have stopped seeing new patients or have incredibly long waiting lists.” My brother is forced to go …
I recently saw an ophthalmologist for my worsening eyesight. The doctor came highly recommended and was credentialed as an MD and MBA. He founded his practice, which has grown to over a dozen practitioners. His website boasts how he works with the pharmaceutical industry to help develop and market new medications “that improve the standard of care.”
According to Open Payments data, the doctor has relationships with ten …
According to Chris Jordan, a New Jersey shore native who writes about music and entertainment, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed “like their lives depended on it” when they recently kicked off their 2023 tour in Tampa, Florida early February. The tour will keep the 73-year-old Springsteen on the road for six months, playing a total of 62 concerts, proving that mortality can be a …
My personal doctor and two of my cherished mentors died within the past several years, each “after a long illness,” according to their obituaries. Rock legend David Crosby (The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) recently died “after a long illness,” as stated by his wife, Jan Dance.
David Crosby’s co-musicians were perplexed that his widow would attribute his death to a long illness. Crosby certainly …
Several years ago, a good friend and colleague – the chairman of a psychiatry department – notified people about his retirement in a department newsletter. He wrote, “I sent out a letter to the alumni and adjunct faculty that I will retire on June 30 [2021]. I had decided five years ago that when I reached a certain age, I was going to retire. Such decisions have multiple determinants and …
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