If you are a frequent flyer in an airlines program, this is often a benefit. If you are a “frequent flyer” in a health care setting, this is not. It means you may have a chronic illness and are often seen in a health care setting, treated, sent home, a…
In Catholic elementary school, we sat at our school desks, and the nuns had us pray for the lost souls in purgatory every day. If we prayed hard enough, we would pray them out of purgatory and lift them into heaven. Before I clock in, I say my anti-ass…
Most of the people who debate COVID-19 vaccination are not physicians. Of those who are, not all have treated COVID-19 patients. I have. As soon as COVID-19 vaccines became available, my entire practice was vaccinated. One elderly patient was not becau…
I traveled to Denver to California via train in mid-October. The train is aptly named the California Zephyr. It is a 33-hour trip, across the high mountains of Colorado — with magnificent views of rocky canyons flanking the Colorado River – and …
I need to start this blog by saying that these times do try us. I completely understand this as I continue to care for others in what is rapidly becoming the most tenacious public health disaster of my nearly 40 years in nursing. Last week, as I search…
It was a Monday two years ago. I was still fresh from coming back from having been out of school from a COVID break. I was no older than 22, and I was in my pediatrics clerkship. I was greener than a freshly watered lawn, and I felt every bit of it. It…
I enter the breast care center, check in, and take a seat. Though there are few people in the room; there is a sense of dread and trepidation that hangs in the air. It feels almost like a sacred space as I am acutely aware of all the prayers, meditatio…
There’s one thing that links every patient I see as a pain management specialist: All they want is relief. And they want it in whatever way is going to be the most effective and least disruptive to their lives. And anyone in this role can tell you that…
I am definitely getting my daughter vaccinated, and I acknowledge a minimal risk. Here is my reasoning, and perhaps this can help your family decide to get the vaccine for the kids in your family, too. Coronavirus is going to be with us for a long time…
I truly believe we’re at the beginning of something great in terms of fundamentally changing how we approach pancreatic cancer, the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States. With a mortality rate of roughly 80 percent, it’s been referre…
