I wanted to go the extra mile for my patient. The resistance I found was unexpected. She was young. Her life — an incredible journey in diplomatic circles — was crippled too soon by a recurring disease that would ultimately prevail. Day after day, I…
Because everything around us usually works, it can be easy to forget how fragile some of the workings are. My patients see this with their bodies, as they fail, but not so apparent to them are the fragilities of the health care system that we doctors g…
Doctors dispense medical advice. That’s what we do. Folks come to our office with various medical issues. We talk to them. We poke around some of their body parts. Then, we exercise our medical judgment. We might order a CT scan. We might prescribe stu…
There are certain paradoxes of life that are beyond the realm of rational explanation. To me, one of such is that a country that figured out how to defy gravity and conquered the cosmos has time and time again proven to be incapable of taking care of t…
“I should explain to you, Socrates, that our friend Cratylus has been arguing about names; he says they are natural and not conventional; […] that there is a truth or correctness in them.” – Plato I once heard that the sound of one’s …
During the winter months, it’s common for many families to spend more time indoors due to colder weather and fewer daylight hours. Unfortunately, children may also end up spending an increased amount of time using electronics to entertain or dive…
A recent study published in Science, one of the world’s leading academic journals, found that a predictive health care algorithm discriminated against black patients. The tool, created by Optum, was designed to identify high-risk patients with untreate…
As a fourth-year orthopaedic surgery resident, we had some surgical autonomy. Always at arm’s length from the attending oversight, this was just enough to push us past our comfort zones. My problem was I loved my comfort zone. The single most influent…
Empathizing with others’ suffering is one of the most human expressions in life. For empathy to nurture, like any other emotion, it needs time and space, and in none other professions, this maxim is codified as profoundly as in medicine. Even in …
I found this note waiting for me this morning in the kitchen. It was from my daughter, who is home for the holiday week from New York. I made her a cup of coffee yesterday morning, and it was waiting for her on the table when she woke up and meandered …
