An excerpt from The Working Mom Blueprint: Winning at Parenting Without Losing Yourself. My husband and I ordered a special celebratory dinner the night my first book was published. It was an important professional milestone for me, and I was proud of …
Balding, pale as a ghost, thin and frail, a protruding swollen abdomen. She walks in slowly and unsteady, with her family in tow, and is shown to her exam room. I am the medical student working that day with a surgical oncology attendant, a behemoth in…
An excerpt from Tenacity in Children: Nurturing the Seven Instincts for Lifetime Success. Did you ever wonder why babies quickly develop a social smile and look you in the eyes? Is it surprising to learn that the muscles in your ears are set within the…
We stood at the bedside. Our eyes met through plastic goggles and face shields. Wordlessly, we acknowledged a palpable shift. We three pediatric emergency physicians staffed our New York City ER that late fall day, caring for the third teen in a row…
“Everyday, there is a theme to our rounds, and I will ask for your thoughts at the end.” This was the warning our attending physician gave before we went to see our patients on the hospital inpatient floor. As third-year medical students on our first c…
“Let’s meet in the middle and listen to what’s happening in communities. All across U.S. communities, there are pockets of promise and programs focused on family interventions, behavior change, and health disparities, but there are many obstacles…
“Why do they book your well-child checks for 15 minutes?” my medical student asked me yesterday. I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Gut reaction – like when you laugh instead of cry. I explained that all of our appointments are 15 minutes – well-checks…
When the pediatrician woke me at midnight to get a blood test from my three-month-old son, I knew things were serious. I should have known this already. Four weeks prior, my four-year-old daughter passed along a respiratory virus to my husband, me, and…
Part of your job as a parent is to teach your children, and there’s no way for a child to learn anything without making a few mistakes. Actually, a lot of mistakes. Sometimes these mistakes can be infuriating. They might be self-destructive mista…
I fear that I’m not doing the right thing. You’re trusting me with your life. I hear you telling me that you don’t want me to do what I am about to do. I see it in your eyes, the resentment as you look toward your family. And hatred for me, your physic…
