I had my first mammogram at age 35, and for the next 35 years I had mammograms regularly. On my way, I’d pass the entrance to the Thomas Johns Cancer Hospital, outside of Richmond, VA, never thinking that I’d one day cross that threshold my…
Category: Oncology/Hematology
This is what the face of resilience looks like
At the age of 17, my younger sister Elisabeth noticed a change in her body — enlargement of the front of her neck. “I just thought I was building muscle from working out,” she innocently rationalized. A series of laboratory tests and imaging followed a…
MKSAP: 79-year-old man with a sacral ulcer
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 79-year-old man is evaluated for pain in the buttocks region. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin large B-cell lymphoma 6 months ago. Althoug…
Silence isn’t golden when it comes to health
When I was a preemie — all two-and-a-half pounds of me — my mom was understandably worried. She said her doctor wheeled her down the hall to the newborn nursery, and my mom could hear me screaming all the way down the hall. She said, “I’ve got to hand …
A bad outcome changed this physician’s life
I’m struggling — truly struggling. This year has been beyond hard. I honestly never thought this time last year that I would be in this predicament. Things were good, I had a great job, and I was working on our fixing up our dream retirement home. We h…
The Ellen Show broadcasts potentially harmful information about ovarian cancer screening
Ethical OB/GYNs everywhere sighed heavily when they realized from the action on their Facebook and Twitter feeds that the Ellen Show broadcasted incorrect and potentially harmful information about ovarian cancer screening to almost 4 million people. Mi…
Is cancer truly the enemy?
Cancer is the enemy. So, our immediate desire is to get rid of it, throw it away, and never hear from it again. Current therapies that require living tissue are proving that false. We know that your living tumor tissue is like your fingerprint, unique to each individual patient. It contains information specific to you, […]
There’s no textbook for when your father is dying
On my first day of medical school, my father, a dentist, told me he’d just been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Cancer had crept back into my life — except this time not into my body. At age 12, I was diagnosed with brain cancer. After an aggressive surgery, I was tumor-free for 10 […]
When breast cancer screening guidelines conflict: Some patients face real consequences
Are my breast cancer and I on the wrong side of statistics, or just caught in the confusing and potentially devastating conflict between medical societies about when women should start breast-cancer screening? One morning more than a year ago, it didn’t seem like either. As both of my kids cuddled in bed with my husband […]
Prostate cancer screening campaigns are giving men the finger
Fifty years ago, in a golden moment of television comedy shows, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In program regularly featured “The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate” award. Wikipedia says it “recognized actual dubious achievements by public individuals or institutions.” Do a Google search. You’ll quickly see how popular this award became. Yes, I’m dating myself by going […]
