“Didn’t you just have a baby? When are you going to stop?” Those words weren’t directed to me but to a colleague by a patient’s parent who was frustrated that they wouldn’t be able to see her for follow-up. Yet, they could have easily been uttered by a…
Advocates for the legalization of medical and retail marijuana are quick to point out all the possible benefits that a community might see from such a venture. These include increased jobs, increased tax revenue, possible medical benefits and they adve…
Part 4 of a series. By the time my father’s metastatic prostate cancer was diagnosed, he was already experiencing symptoms of poor appetite and weight loss, which grew progressively worse following his first hospital admission. As his nutritional statu…
In an ideal world, we should all be compensated fairly for our services and skills. The reality, as we all experience, is an amalgam of mistakes and victories. One hopes that with time our skills will translate to a greater number of victories. Most…
Chemotherapy drugs have become ridiculously expensive. Many new drugs come to market costing more than $100,000 per patient for a full course of treatment. Often, patients have to pay a significant portion of these costs. For example, a 20% co-insuranc…
“Personalized” medicine sounds appealing. Rather than just guessing at what medication to try, a genetic test can figure out, in advance, which medications will be effective and which medications are more likely to make you sicker. Except it doesn’t wo…
Eye contact is one of the most basic mammalian traits that signals an interaction. Anybody who has a dog or cat at home sees on a daily basis how much animals value eye contact (and with dogs, it signals you’ve lost the battle!). In the case of health …
Often people (mostly residents and medical students) ask why on earth did I choose to do a geriatric fellowship? My response is because it is the medicine of the future. While we are all aging, the fastest growing age groups are those born between 1946…
Driving north in a snowstorm Tuesday of Thanksgiving week I certainly took my time. I left after our Suboxone clinic wrap-up conference, around 7:30 p.m., and arrived at my unplowed driveway in Caribou about 1 a.m. On the way up, I saw two ambulances, …
I found his obituary today. Kids do not always have obituaries. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is because children are not supposed to die and no one quite knows what to say. Still, I always look for them. He loved the color green. His death was so unex…
