Medical

Do you remember when you were a bright-eyed pre-med student, head bowed at the computer, typing your personal statement? Type, type … backspace, backspace … type. You didn’t want to use the phrase “to help people” in your statement as your reason for wanting to be a physician. Maybe you said something like me. I…

The rapid advances of medical science, patients’ expectations, the loss of autonomy, insurers’ regulations, fears of litigation, and the documentation burden of recording patient data on electronic medical records all contribute to widespread physician dissatisfaction, and cynicism with medical practice referred to simply as “burnout.” Some have reduced their hours, some have quit medicine. Some…

The baffling spread of the novel coronavirus has given many scientists and policymakers pause. There may be some important clues in the patterns the disease is leaving that tell us quite a bit about what conditions can hasten its spread and even worsen its lethality. So far, the areas of the world where most people…

First, do no harm. For physicians, these are hallowed words. Within religion, they are akin to the Golden Rule and are, in fact, quite similar. In the realm of ethics, Kant’s categorical imperative, to only do what you would have seen done universally to all people, comes to mind as a suitable comparative axiom. Other…

It’s 3 pm on a warm, sunny Saturday. For the past 20 years your mother would dress in her finest clothes and walk to her neighbor’s house for her weekly bridge game. For the past month, however, she has not been interested in playing bridge. Although she sometimes required prompting (as well as reminders to…

As many of my Facebook friends know, I have posted a great many updates about COVID-19, both public health recommendations and news updates, but this is my personal plea.  As a physician with a public health degree, looking at the data, looking at what’s happening in other countries, and looking at how things are progressing…

As I drove back home from the hospital yesterday, I noticed that traffic was lighter. Then tonight, as I walked my dog in the early evening, I cannot help but notice the lack of foot traffic, the relative emptiness of the street. There are others like me walking their dogs, but as I pass the…

This nurse notified his hospital unit director testing availability for novel coronavirus on January 26, 2020.  This nurse asked his hospital unit director if signs could be posted discouraging visitation unless necessary on March 10, 2020. The response was, “People need to take care of themselves.” She said this standing next to the signs that…

An excerpt from Of Plagues and Vampires: Believable Myths and Unbelievable Facts from Medical Practice. The concept of a vampire predates Bram Stoker’s tales of Count Dracula – probably by several centuries. But did vampires ever really exist? In 1819, 80 years before the publication of Dracula, John Polidori, an Anglo-Italian physician, published a novel…