Author's posts
Optimize your knee injury recovery without surgery
Recently, growing attention has been given to the fact that some types of surgery may be overrated. This article succinctly summarizes the situation, citing dozens of studies showing that some orthopedic surgeries popular in past decades had no better …
Combining academic medicine and private practice: a success story
In the United States, physicians are typically categorized as either academics or private practitioners. However, a case can be made that it is possible to construct a career path that incorporates both professional avenues. I was put in an excellent p…
Why taking risks is worth it: a doctor’s journey from uncertainty to opportunity
There were no smartphones when I was a medical resident in the late 80s in Puerto Rico. During my last year, while waiting for a lecturer to arrive, I grabbed a medical journal from the conference room table to kill some time. I flipped through the pag…
How technology is transforming medicine and making distance healing a reality
My first job as a “real” doctor was in 1991. During one of those early days in my career, one of my coworkers — a woman who worked in reception — approached me for help. Even then, I could recognize a look of desperation. It reminded me of …
Not listening carefully to a vulnerable patient can become a matter of life or death
Paula came to my office on a Monday afternoon, a few months after burying her husband. She and John had been inseparable. They were both my patients, so I knew John had spent the last six months battling lung cancer. They had been married forty-five ye…
We cannot ignore nutrition’s impact on both pain and obesity
An excerpt from Epigenetics and the Psychology of Weight Loss: How to Lose More Weight with Less Effort. We know that people with chronic pain are more likely to be obese; but does this happen because people with chronic pain struggle to exercise and …
Are we too scared to talk to our patients about their weight?
Talking about weight isn’t easy. Case in point, I was scheduled to perform five back-to-back fluoroscopically guided procedures. This was not unusual, but all my scheduled patients happened to be seriously overweight. Excess fat and skin made it …
The importance of non-judgmental empathy
It has always been difficult for medical professionals to balance the time needed for personal care, both physical and emotional, against the overwhelming demands of their time. This is particularly true today, given the extraordinary pressures created…
- 1
- 2
