I yelled for the nurse as I wrapped my arms around Mr. John. He was suffering from a violent acute dystonic reaction from a dose of Haldol the night before. Severe muscle spasms overtook his entire body. I saw the whites of his eyes as his gaze shot to…
All of us nurses and physicians in the ED and ICU knew him well. He was a young, 21-year-old. A smart, articulate guy who kept going from one hospital to the next. He had a system down … almost. This young man was a drug seeker. He knew all about…
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 64-year-old woman is evaluated during a posthospital visit for severe COPD with an FEV1 of 30% of predicted. She has been admitted three ti…
It can be difficult to tease out the evidence-based science amidst the claims of successful adult stem cell-based treatments for a range of health problems from joint pain to Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration, and spinal cord injury. Even a num…
It was a common enough reason for someone to have a CT scan. The order read, “Abdominal pain, colon cancer resected in January.” It was now March, only two months post-surgery. Yet the patient’s CT scan showed a number of large masses in the liver, con…
When a mental health clinic, online referral service, or private practice offers “evidence-based” psychotherapy, that certainly sounds like a selling point. It suggests solid science supports the therapy offered — and that competing services lac…
The Washington Post ran this headline: “’Horns’ are growing on young people’s skulls. Phone use is to blame, research suggests.” The headline is entirely correct except for a few minor points: They’re not horns, which point up from the forehead. They’r…
The science of complexity lays a conceptual foundation for understanding “complex adaptive systems.” What all complex adaptive systems have in common is that they are all bound by the same set of physical laws. Their “behavior,”…
Prior to my 10-year-old son being diagnosed with leukemia, I worked as a diabetes nurse educator at a local hospital. I had been an RN for over 15 years and was able to balance home life with work; I loved educating patients on how to deal with their d…
Recently I visited a lady at her home who was a palliative care patient. She was seated on the couch in the living room with a turban on her head and a look of anxiety and depression. Her husband was quiet during the entire visit. He was seated in a ch…
