Pain usually cannot be “treated” like a standard ear infection. Treating patients in pain requires setting realistic expectations, using a variety of approaches, and patience. One patient I treated months ago highlights these points. At 6 a.m., I was r…
“Cha-ching!” goes urgent care. For your rhinovirus, adenovirus, or seasonal allergies you get a strep screen, flu swab, CBC, and chest X-ray. You get a steroid shot, Rocephin, and Z-Pak. A week later, you present for medical care again, because your vi…
Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and Sesame Street, died at the age of 53. His diagnosis was toxic shock syndrome/streptococcus pneumonia — a deadly bacterial infection. We were on vacation when we heard the news: The genius who opened the imaginatio…
Peanut allergies can be a serious problem, and many exposures happen when our kids are at school. On average, there are probably about 5 peanut-allergic children in each of our nation’s 100,000 school buildings. What’s the best policy for schools to us…
“Is she in pain?” I asked quietly as the pearlescent baby-shaped image on the screen folded its legs and then extended them. The radiologist doing my ultrasound had just finished pointing out a cluster of alarming abnormalities in our devel…
Eat less, exercise more is a common refrain heard by millions of people with obesity. If only it were that simple. Decades of research shows obesity is a disease that is caused by a combination of genetic, environmental, biological, and behavioral fact…
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 55-year-old man is evaluated in the emergency department for a 2-day history of mild nausea and dyspepsia that is worse with fasting and im…
ing my ER shift for the day, I waited for the shuttle at a busy intersection. Within a minute of drowning myself in music, I saw an obese man at the bus stop suddenly collapse to the ground. I removed my backpack and ran the fastest I have ever run in …
It was 4:00 a.m. when I made it to my parents’ home. My mother called me to say that my father was having a hard time breathing. I could hear him struggling in the background. I ran inside to see my mother cradling my father on the floor — not breathin…
It was another simmering-hot Texas day, and the AC was faltering in the family-practice clinic where I worked as a family nurse practitioner. Most of our clients were poor and spoke only Spanish. My nurse, Eliza, approached, wide-eyed. “ThereR…
