“I broke our only promise,” swelling with guilt, Sarah wept as she stumbled out of the front door. Two years ago, her father asked her to never leave him in a nursing home. They pinky promised. But how could anyone have predicted what would…
Category: Conditions
Let’s help grow more intergenerational connections
There are few things more satisfying than seeing young people and older adults interacting with each other and building an effortless sense of community and belonging. Robust communities include all ages. But such spaces need help to develop and thrive…
A physician’s reflection: Is it time to pass the torch?
I was at a meeting discussing issues concerning upcoming audits by various regulatory agencies and noticed a change that made me aware of the fact that many years have come and gone since I started this journey in administrative and public psychiatry. …
Understanding obesity beyond lifestyle choices
Recently, media outlets and social media influencers have been on fire with stories about new “miracle” obesity drugs that promise a quick fix for people wanting to lose weight. Lost in this chatter are the life stories of millions of Ameri…
Addressing obesity: Is there a role for us as specialists?
I was in rheumatology private practice for just under four years as my first few years out of fellowship. During that time, too many of my patients were coming with obesity complicating a facet of their rheumatic disease. The most common example might …
A modern tale of thyroid cancer: AI, haikus, and healing
AI Ally Hangs up. Phone drops. Thud. She blinks back, tears, and looks up. Thyroid cancer, huh … Typing, click clack … thud. She sighs in relief. Texts friends, invites family over for comfort. The next day, she calls her doctor ready to talk, ready to…
A lesson in generosity: How one woman helped a stranger afford insulin
I waited in line at the pharmacy, a familiar chain store. The man in front of me waited patiently for the technician to ring up his meds. I overheard her say to him, “$125.00. That includes your insulin.” The man bowed his head and smiled p…
Health care’s breaking point: patients and physicians abandoned
I know you are wounded, as I am also injured. It is as if we have been battered and bruised and kicked to the side of the road, left there alone to suffer. An ignored problem will soon be forgotten; at least, that is their contention. We have screamed …
How one patient’s death transformed my approach to mental health care
Prior to working as a nurse practitioner, I worked as a psychiatric registered nurse in an inpatient behavioral health setting, caring for individuals with severe mental illness (SMI). Individuals with SMI die ten to twenty years earlier than the gener…
CRISPR and eEVs in the fight against chronic diseases
In one of my favorite movies, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the original crew of the Enterprise has traveled through time, back to the, to them ancient, city of San Francisco circa the 1980s. It’s all about Earth whales and alien cetaceans being…
