Medical

My heart pumps rhythmically, as does yours, and aches when sadness strikes. I am stressed and discouraged when I feel I have no control over an illness that invades my body.  Is this not true for you as you lay in your bed at night, feeling that “your best was not good enough” to help…

As a young medical doctor in academia in the early 1980s, most of my research was conducted in male rats. I was told that the estrus cycle in female rats would interfere with data interpretation. Investigators were reluctant to test medications in women of reproductive age, because of the concern about pregnancy.  Older women were…

Recently, there have been several TV advertisements on cancer treatments that may extend life. They report survival data that can mislead cancer victims to the extent of possible longevity. Additionally, they present a false picture of how life can be spent. I have strong reservations regarding medication advertising to the public. Its purpose is to…

I complain about the state of U.S. health care a lot. It’s not driven by quality. It’s expensive. It’s corporatized. It undervalues and commoditizes clinical workers. It’s too controlled by insurance companies. It’s riddled with racial, educational, and socio-economic disparities. I could, and often do, go on and on. But the other night, I was…

There is ample evidence that patients with severe mental illness are at high risk for significant medical comorbidities. A complex combination of factors contributes to this excess risk and consequential poor outcomes. Socioeconomic factors, side effects from psychiatric medications, poor access to health care as well as smoking, alcohol, and substance use, prevalent in this…

“It is still extremely early in the Bitcoin story. This is due to the same network effect that Facebook, Amazon, and Apple have had as adoption of new technologies rapidly expand and are adopted by society. Bitcoin has passed its ‘tipping point.’ Converting some of your money to Bitcoin now is like taking an ownership…

“The memory of these patients, and their families’ utter anguish, stays with me. There was nothing I could have done to save them, nothing I did wrong. I’ve lost sleep, questioned my career choice, and sought mental health counseling to manage the stress of their loss. But the pain of their unexpected and tragic deaths…

Loss is incurable, but grief is metamorphic. The end of another human life is a fluid experience for those left behind. For most of us, grief legitimizes the range of human emotion and, at least temporarily, erases the idea of being too sensitive. There are many ways in which this paradigm is unequal, particularly for…