I’m sure you can picture it. You’re sitting in an exam room wearing a paper gown, waiting for your health care provider to walk in the room. There are a few colorful posters on the wall about flu season, health screenings, and a discount pr…
As physicians, we are trained to dissect symptoms and to hunt for a diagnosis. But my own journey with Sjogren’s, like my patients’, wasn’t a textbook case. It was a puzzle with pieces scattered over decades, ignored or dismissed at e…
An excerpt from Winter’s End: Dementia and Dying Well. Are there really fates worse than death? Like most people, Dan Winter was uncertain. That is until he visited his father at a memory care unit in Lawrence, Kansas. Dan’s father had been…
Springtime. Blooming trees. Green grass. Cool winds. Sunny skies. COVID. That is where my mind wanders every year since 2020, when the season turns. I flash back to the drive between the hospital and my home. Every evening after fighting a losing battl…
Although it’s hard for me to comprehend and even harder to admit, I’m “of age” to be on Medicare. Recently, I visited my primary care physician (PCP) for a Medicare Annual Wellness Visit, a one-hour appointment that requires the…
One doctor I’ve worked with had gotten caught up in the idea of being a doctor. She realized, during her training with us, that she had stopped looking her patients in the eye. In fact, she had stopped making eye contact with her patients when sh…
I understand it well. You persuade yourself that everything is fine. And then you persuade others that your marriage is perfect. You’re facing a terminal illness, but you’re the exception because it surely can’t happen to you. YouR…
There’s a condition that is crippling Black and brown communities at a disproportionate rate and causing 400 amputations each day in the U.S. That may sound scary, but the most frightening part? A new consumer survey found that 70 percent of Amer…
I’ve been inspired by a recent New York Times article that came out about IUDs, better known as intrauterine devices, and how painful and horrible some of the experiences for women have been over the years. Since writing some of these thoughts, I…
The red climbs up. She just delivered, and the arm of my gown. It seeps under the glove, soaking the cuff. She’s still bleeding. No worries – I call for the postpartum hemorrhage meds in the order I’ve memorized and used successfully hundre…