Medical

I recently experienced, up close and personal, yet another injury to our doctors and our health care system. I have an undiagnosed, undiagnosable, autoimmune disease. I am rarely, if ever, without any physical symptoms. I have learned about them and how to manage them. Annoying? Sometimes. But no longer frightening, once my doctors and I…

One thing we all need right now, especially for our kids, is optimism. Anxiety and uncertainty are part of daily life. Still, there are ways to help children navigate the challenges 2020 has brought us, whether in our own household or our professional practice as health care providers. 1. Model it. Children will look to…

Anyone familiar with hay fever understands that weather impacts respiratory symptoms. However, many of weather’s effects on respiratory function remain unclear. One unanswered question is the extent to which storms affect people with chronic lung disease, particularly the type affecting the way air moves in and out of the lungs. These “obstructive lung diseases” are…

I began my career in psychiatry with the desire to work with dying patients. This is an odd way to begin, but I had begun my career with interest in oncology and eventually discovered the field of psycho-oncology. After graduating, the first population I worked with was HIV infected individuals when an HIV diagnosis was…

“I was admitted to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation and stabilization just after my third year of medical school. Leading up to my episode, I thought I was fine – stressed, sure, overworked, definitely, but I thought that was normal for someone just finishing a year of clinical rotations. I deteriorated rapidly, and by the…

On August 12, 2013, my five-week-old daughter was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. I distinctly recall the feeling of “Everything has changed.” I had worked in the field of chronic disease for almost a decade. And yet, it had never occurred to me that this would happen. Other people’s kids might be sick, but not mine.…

Dr. Todd Wolynn, a Pittsburgh pediatrician, feels so strongly about this that he made the statement twice while speaking at the recent annual Canadian Immunization Conference. “You’re abandoning your patients and leaving them open to an incredible amount of disinformation if you don’t get involved on social media,” he said, the second time, during a…

This is really the question that got me started blogging. My focus is on helping physicians get their finances to achieve financial well-being as I work on achieving it myself. I guess I feel qualified to talk about it because I am on this same trip. I especially like to focus on helping those in…