<span itemprop="author">Edwin Leap, MD

I once saw an older gentleman who was mentally impaired from birth. A hard enough blow, he had slowly, inexorably drifted into dementia.  He cut his head in a fall, suffering the ravages of gravity as so many do every day, every night. He was Caucasian…

I sometimes work as a church security volunteer.  And when I do it, I get to simply stand and watch.  Watch for someone sick or injured (we have defibrillators and wound care equipment).  Watch for someone coming to cause harm.  Watch in order to call …

It’s hard to explain what we do. And so maybe, it’s hard for others to sympathize with our situations. I mean, physicians, mid-levels, and nurses in emergency departments are tied to computers in often cramped work-spaces, even as they are required to …

In the emergency department, we see them all the time.  The person with a medical problem too serious to ignore, but not quite bad enough to require admission.  The patient referred to the specialist who comes back to the ER. “I couldn’t afford t…

I hate confrontation.  It’s just the way I was raised.  I’m not saying it’s right, or healthy, it just happened.  My parents and I almost never confronted one another; even when it would have been healthier.  That, of course, is water under the bridge …

It seems that all day, every day, I care for patients who simply won’t take care of themselves.  And I sometimes think that we in emergency medicine have caused more harm than we expected. Now let me first say, I also take care of those who can’t care …

Many years ago, it was called the emergency room. Now we call it the emergency department. However, unlike so many departments in the world, the emergency department has almost too many purposes, duties, and mandates to number. However, in the process …