“I just moved here from Portland two weeks ago,” said Ms. Shelly in a weak voice. When I walked into the room, I immediately noticed her blood pressure was 224/108. The patient was mostly sleeping, but when I started speaking with her, it w…
Category: Conditions
Literacy and patients’ understanding of health education
In my first bioethics class, the components of health education (HE) were just being developed, and despite the passage of time, full understanding remains elusive as HE proved far more complex than originally conceived. We learned, simplistically, by …
Who are the neurodiverse people in your life?
As physicians, we equate terms like “disorder” and “syndrome” with pathology. If a diagnosis is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV, it’s considered a “problem.” In the …
Health care’s 3 epic childhood obesity failures
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of spouting the same old worsening childhood obesity statistics, applying the same dilute and sometimes broken strategy, not getting anywhere, judging myself as a doctor, then shifting the blame to my p…
I’m a doctor who just had his first colonoscopy in my 60s — without anesthesia
Well, I am that family physician and geriatrician who is now almost 70 years old. And I cannot believe it because, in some ways, I am still like 27 years old! First of all, I’m very healthy, and I’m lucky that nobody in my family had colon …
The ramparts of the neurosurgeon’s mind were unassailable
An excerpt from Azazel’s Public House. Pete tried to invade Tommy’s brain and force an oops moment. But the ramparts of the neurosurgeon’s mind were unassailable. Clancy, unaware he was battling on two fronts, tried to spare any brain…
Shame not on us: Diagnoses and treatments need to be transparent
In Australia recently, a woman successfully sued a hospital for $2.4 million for a series of misdiagnoses that left her quadriplegic. A London woman was recently misdiagnosed four times before doctors discovered she had cervical cancer. A Canadian woma…
Making death conversations fun!
“Arriving at an acceptance of one’s mortality is a process, not an epiphany.” – Atul Gawande Imagine a group of old (mature) friends gathered for a “girls” weekend in balmy Florida. The friendships started in grammar…
Emotional eating: Why you always want food
An excerpt from How to Lose Weight for the Last Time: Brain-Based Solutions for Permanent Weight Loss. Copyright © 2022 by Katrina Ubell. Reprinted with permission of Balance Publishing. All rights reserved. “I just really like food.” ̶…
Football pervades our society so we must be prepared to deal with it
It’s not that I hate football; truly I don’t. I try hard to get into it. I scan the sports page to become familiar with names, rivalries, predictions, and opinions. I tune in to Sports Extra on Sunday nights for the weekend analysis and wra…
