An excerpt from A Caregiver’s Love Story. Caregiver burnout is a real and serious problem for those caregivers in for the long haul. It is a serious issue if you go to bed each night in anguish over the next day’s chores and wake up each mo…
Category: Conditions
Having more doctors to assess rare, multi-system illnesses
From an Indian parable dated from before 500 BCE: A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: “We must inspect…
Beyond comfort: a treatment for OCD and a recipe for a better life
When I was a child, I recall my mother telling me that to live a successful life, you must do one thing every day that scares you. I remember not fully understanding this piece of advice’s magnitude or real significance, yet it still resonated. I…
A C-section is not a defeat
“It was a cold night in October …” I can now joke about that night with my husband and my best friend from OB/GYN residency. I had worked a Saturday 24-hour call shift, and as soon as I got home on Sunday morning, I began having symptoms th…
Technology disparities during cardiopulmonary cerebral resuscitation (CPCR)
When we talk about health disparities, we talk about socially disadvantaged populations. The disadvantages can be defined locally if we are talking about local communities, regionally if we are talking about regional populations, nationally if we are t…
Leading an organizational culture change? Consider an apology first.
Leading an organization from a culture of bullying or blaming to a culture of safety is a daunting initiative. Unhealthy alignments are deeply embedded in toxic cultures, and informal power dynamics may influence how people behave. Instead of respectfu…
It’s not brain surgery: People with Parkinson’s need better care in the hospital
One year ago, I had brain surgery. The surgery was a success, and the hospital stay almost killed me. I am one in a million; one of the 1 million people in the U.S. diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD), a degenerative neurological disorder tha…
Adverse childhood experiences: Can government policy reduce trauma?
One of the most radical implications of the literature on early childhood trauma is that abuse needs to be eliminated from all of our relationships- with our families, teachers, colleagues, and government. When government leaders create a new policy, t…
Giving language to empathy: lessons from palliative care
The value of empathy in medicine is seldom debated. Just as the art of medicine is taught as the balance of knowledge and application, so has empathy been recognized as both a value to be fostered and a skill to be learned. Medical curricula have refle…
A personal mission to get obese patients on GLP-1 agonists
Admittedly, this comes to you from a place of concussion-inducing-head-banging-against-brick-walls-level frustration. For the past year, I have made it a personal mission to get people suffering from obesity on GLP-1 agonists. These drugs are all in th…
