Author's posts
The dream patient that makes a doctor very happy
Mr. Williams is a 52-year old male who has been following me for some time. He has just been started on metformin for newly diagnosed diabetes. Lisinopril is his only other medication for high blood pressure. When he had his yearly physical, he was als…
When the family wants to speak to the doctor
Being a doctor is often more about talking to people and communicating than it is about the scientific practice of medicine. This is something that is unfortunately not taught enough in medical school, and it’s left to newly qualified doctors to realiz…
3 reasons why patients are unhappy
When I’m working in the hospital, I always find it interesting talking to patients about their medical history and experiences with outpatient physicians. I recently wrote about our broken primary care system. In fact, I’ll be stronger than that: Our p…
The blunt truth on why stopping COVID is impossible
COVID-19 has turned the world on its head. A major problem we have faced since the beginning is that it had already been spreading like wildfire for a few months since the end of 2019 — before most of the world realized that it was time to take action …
Could an ancient way of thinking save the U.S.?
You may be familiar with the words stoicism and have an idea about what it means to be stoic (there’s actually a lot of confusion and misconceptions out there about exactly what they mean). Let’s take a step back for a moment before we dive in any furt…
Doctors already are actors, whether they want to be ones or not
The era of the empowered patient and patient-centered health care has been upon us for some time. Only a generation ago, there was a much more paternalistic approach to medicine. This has changed for the better across the western world. As somebody who…
The Greatest Generation is dying out. It’ll really be our loss once they leave us.
As a physician working in acute care medicine, one of the biggest delights of my job is regularly still having patients from the Greatest Generation. In the United Kingdom, I really enjoyed sitting with them and hearing their stories of mandatory city …
How to be an empathetic and compassionate communicator
One of the most annoying things for any professional, is to be face-to-face with the person you are serving—whether it be your customer, client, or patient—in the limited time available to you, and feel that your attention is being diverted from the ma…
Why this physician became a personal trainer
As many readers of my work know, I have a huge passion for preventive medicine, and balance my acute care hospital work with an outpatient wellness clinic. I have always been into exercise and outdoor activities since a young age but only became a regu…
This is the most important skill you can have in life
I was 16 years old and being given a car ride to a cricket match by one of my teammates. He was our opening batsman and a good cricket player—I’m guessing around 40 to 50 years old. He started asking about how my education was going. I told him that I …
