Author's posts
3 steps for doctors who are grieving
As an advanced heart failure and transplant cardiologist, I witness plenty of tragedy. But I don’t lay awake at night anymore grieving bad outcomes — that is the privilege and purview of loved ones. While family and friends may move through Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ classic stages of grief, doctors do not have that luxury. To give […]
The difference between care and service is significant
My father, recently retired, spent over 40 years in private practice. After dinner, he would sift through piles of paper charts and call patients with their lab results. As a grade schooler, what impressed me the most was that he knew many of his patient’s phone numbers by heart. Of course, this was in the […]
Is the stethoscope a vestigial organ?
In the context of human evolution, a vestigial organ is defined as one that has lost all or most of its original function through evolution. Charles Darwin provided a list of vestigial human organs in “The Descent of Man,” including the muscles of the ear, wisdom teeth, the appendix, the coccyx, body hair and the […]
