As a medical student working in East Harlem, I see inequities in access to care on a daily basis. These inequities are exemplified amongst children suffering from neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism. In 2000, about 1 in 150 children were ident…
Today, the practice of medicine mainly involves treating medical conditions after symptoms of the medical condition become obvious (e.g., setting a fracture or treating pneumonia), or preventing disease for a population of patients using a preventative…
“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable.” – Fred Rogers Cheslie Kryst, a former Miss USA, lawyer, and entertainment correspondent, died by suicide. She was smart, beautiful,…
Recently, I was on several calls concerning the precipitous rise of COVID-19 cases and the burden to the health care system. There’s no doubt that we are at a point where challenges become crisis, and crisis becomes collapse. The constant influx …
An excerpt from At Heaven’s Door: What Shared Journeys to the Afterlife Teach About Dying Well and Living Better. What brings you here? I ask this question of every person who steps through the door because they have come to talk about death—the …
An excerpt from Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom–at Last. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. For many months, Leila could not stop ruminating about the fateful event of s…
How can you know that science done quickly during a crisis is good science? This question has taken on new relevance with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Researchers developed vaccines in under a year — easily breaking the previous record of four years. …
In the ongoing saga of the pandemic, there is the debate whether to wear a mask or not. These are physical masks that temporarily hide our face, but we all wear another type of mask, a metaphorical mask. These are the masks we put on to present who we …
I have been following the controversy surrounding the approval of the new Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab with great interest. Until a year and a half ago, I worked as a neurologist in an adult general neurology clinic. Many of my patients had dem…
The percentage of teens using illicit substances dropped significantly in 2021 as the pandemic forced them into isolation from friends, classrooms, and extracurricular activities. Alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine vaping – the most commonly used substan…
