I’m a pathologist and the main way I communicate to the outside world — to your doctor and ultimately to you, the patient is via the pathology report. But the short missives I send from behind the microscope lack any excitement and can fall short of full communication. Here’s the usual story: Skin left scapula, […]
Few things in primary care give patient and doctor mutual and instant gratification. It’s been a while since I reduced a “nursemaid’s elbow” or a spontaneous shoulder dislocation other than my own, or a finger dislocation, but those all count. I once wrote about curing deafness in a man with a movement disorder by flushing ear […]
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 25-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes mellitus is evaluated for recent-onset glycemic fluctuations without symptomatic hypoglycemia. She was diagnosed with diabetes 7 years ago. Her HbA1c levels since diagnosis have ranged from 6.4% to 7.3%, with the most recent value […]
Everyone always jokes with doctors, “What happens if you get sick?” Some of us laugh off the question. The busy schedule of health care often means our own health comes last. However, what happens when it’s a chronic disease that requires treatment? Then the answer to this question is a little different. I am a […]
The Hippocratic Oath, as presumably most of us know, is the oath taken by physicians promising to uphold ethical standards in treating their patients. The four pillars of medical ethics primarily stem for this oath: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. The world we see now is socially different compared to what it was when Hippocrates […]
If you search for “how to pass a urine drug test” on the internet, you will get several million results. As physicians, we see and manage the national opioid crisis every day. We see the impacts of this in our practices and our lives. The crisis frankly shows no signs of abating or becoming a […]
There exists a large, mostly-underground, a growing community consisting of those iatrogenically harmed by benzodiazepines. Guilty only of following doctors orders, these patients are marginalized and misunderstood. This has been enabled, at least in part, by poor terminology. Recently on Twitter, Michael P. Hengartner and Marnie Wedlake both posted critical questions in response to a […]
It usually starts with a phone call: “Doc, can I come and talk to you about something?” The “something” might be erectile difficulties or other side effect(s) from prostate cancer treatment. It might be confusion or indecision about what treatment to agree to. I always inform the caller that any of these issues are better […]
“Polio. I’ve seen polio.” Last night, I was speaking with one of the most experienced pediatricians I’ve ever met, Dr. Jack Burstiner. I’ve known him for 50 years. I would have known him even longer if I had been born earlier. He lived in my neighborhood, two doors down. He was my pediatrician. Jack is […]
“Polio. I’ve seen polio.” Last night, I was speaking with one of the most experienced pediatricians I’ve ever met, Dr. Jack Burstiner. I’ve known him for 50 years. I would have known him even longer if I had been born earlier. He lived in my neighborhood, two doors down. He was my pediatrician. Jack is […]
