Category: Conditions

Is it time to find a new mental health provider?

The stress and hardship of the ongoing pandemic caused an increase in the number of adults, teens, and children who have sought mental health care recently. More than 23 million American adults received mental health care last year and the American Aca…

Paracelsus and the birth of toxicology

An excerpt from Preserving Brain Health in a Toxic Age: New Insights from Neuroscience, Integrative Medicine, and Public Health. When my wife and I visited Salzburg Austria a few years ago, we stayed in a small boutique hotel formerly part of the Saint…

A soul that never loses faith

I am so tired. Not in the usual “hard day at work,” but in a “deep-in-my-soul” tired. I am exhausted. I am heading into my third year as system medical director, where I lead a system-wide palliative medicine program in rural he…

How do we explain the end-of-life rally?

Granny Rachel, my husband’s mother, was an old country soul. She was a simple lady who loved the Lord. She accepted me with open arms when my own parents turned their backs on me. Granny Rachel made the best sweet tea and the best homemade vegeta…

Multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children: a pediatric hospitalist’s conversation

Them: “I have never heard of this.” Me: “That’s OK, let me explain what is going on. Your child has a condition called multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children, which we call MIS-C. We see this condition after a COVID infe…

The orphans of COVID: Who will care for them now?

The 911 call came too late. Her daughter was 32 years old and usually quite healthy. But she refused the COVID vaccinations. She said she took her vitamins and was healthy and that “God is my pilot” and “I don’t want toxins in my body.” Her mother knew…

COVID-19 and a call for unity

It’s 2022. COVID-19 is still here, and there is little evidence that it’s going away. Coronaviruses have been here longer than us and will be here after us. For centuries, we have co-existed with viruses, and our God-given immune systems ha…

Balancing care during COVID

I started this commentary when the initial COVID spike involving the mass hospitalization of unvaccinated individuals occurred, and non-COVID patients requiring hospitalization were turned away because no beds, especially in intensive care, were availa…

Kissing disease’s link to multiple sclerosis

In recent decades, mounting evidence has suggested the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a ubiquitous member of the herpes family that causes infectious mononucleosis (a.k.a. the “kissing disease”), can cause multiple sclerosis (MS). Last month, a …

Viral nomenclature or a sign of our times?

As Pandora’s box of coronavirus opened in 2020, it engulfed our planet into an abysmal nightmare. As darkness fell, those of us in medicine sought refuge under a lamp called “knowledge” that sparked its flame from scientific evidence….