One of the most valuable jobs I held following fellowship was working as a full-time deputy editor at UpToDate. My “territory” was breast, gynecologic, and genitourinary oncology, and I helped launch cancer survivorship and palliative care. I learned t…
“Compassion fatigue” is a phrase thrown around easily when talking about the health care professions. It is often spoken in the same breath as “burnout” and “turnover” while discussing the crisis of a diminishing wor…
Wiley Boynton is dead. I first heard the news when Katie, a colleague, called me on my cell phone. Wiley had been taken to the hospital with a knife wound. I asked her right away: “Self-inflicted?” “I think so,” she said. A self…
We knew that the most powerful way to provide substance abuse treatment is in a group setting. Group members can offer support to each other and call out each other’s self-deceptions and public excuses, oftentimes more effectively than the clinicians. …
High blood pressure is the silent killer. It puts people at risk for heart attacks, strokes, vascular disease, kidney failure. It is basically really bad to have longstanding, undertreated high blood pressure. But it is also harmful to be told you have…
If you work a desk job, you’re familiar with the aching back pain, stiff shoulders, and all-around discomfort that hits after you’ve been sitting for an extended period of time. Not only is it painful, but research shows that sitting for hours at a tim…
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 45-year-old man is evaluated for anorexia, dizziness, and weakness. He was discharged from the hospital 5 days ago after transsphenoidal pi…
I’ve just discharged a kid with a cough, and there are no patients waiting to be seen. “I’ll be back,” I tell the nurse, as I slip away to the hospital kitchen and unlock the door. I steal two frozen grilled cheese sandwiches from the freezer and throw…
Anita is 37 with blonde, wild, disheveled hair. She is overweight, has bad teeth, wears too much make-up, and is severely depressed — sometimes psychotic. She tells me she often hears voices. And she constantly complains that the medicine she gets from…
I, along with some others, take Presidents Day as an opportunity to celebrate the lives and contributions of all U.S. presidents. Amid the praise, however, perhaps I alone feel compelled to describe their skeletal maladies. I have gleaned the following…
