As I sat in a frozen yogurt store a couple of years back, I watched as two young men pulled up in an expensive vehicle. They were wearing athletic attire from a private faith-affiliated university in the neighborhood. Both grabbed sample cups and cup-by-cup consumed about ten dollars-worth of yogurt each before jestfully yelling “Gracias” […]
I stuck myself with a hypodermic needle the other day. Intentionally. The first time in over 25 years of doctoring. More surprising, a six-year-old patient told me to do it, so I had to. The boy, who I’ll call Tyler, came to the office with his father and had a large ganglion cyst on the […]
Does the flu shot cause the flu? Let me tell you, without a doubt, that the flu shot does not give you the flu. This is perhaps one of the most common misconceptions I hear as a physician. People absolutely swear by it. I’ve even had people tell me that family members got the flu […]
When you or a loved one is sick or injured, health care decisions are fundamentally a matter of trust. You trust your physician will have the answers you need, because you know that, as a highly-trained medical professional, they’re qualified to make the best recommendation for each and every patient under their care. Physicians receive […]
The beverage industry derailed the movement for soda taxes in California by convincing state elected officials to pre-empt local taxing authority in exchange for cancelling a ballot initiative that would have made all new taxes difficult to pass. But taxes are not the only way to reduce sugary beverage consumption in California or the U.S. as a whole. […]
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 56-year-old man is evaluated for painless intermittent bloody urine of 6 weeks’ duration. History is significant for granulomatosis with polyangiitis (formerly known as Wegener granulomatosis) diagnosed 10 years ago, which is now in remission; he was treated with prednisone for […]
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 56-year-old man is evaluated for painless intermittent bloody urine of 6 weeks’ duration. History is significant for granulomatosis with polyangiitis (formerly known as Wegener granulomatosis) diagnosed 10 years ago, which is now in remission; he was treated with prednisone for […]
The children of survivors are important to the Holocaust story. The children are the future of the past. For a time, it seemed that no one would be left to create a future. That history has been so carefully, lovingly chronicled. It must be preserved. If it is preserved and told, the possibility exists that […]
September 28, 2018 marks 90 years since Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin as an effective antimicrobial which would soon save millions of lives. He warned soon afterwards that unless we used penicillin judiciously, we would see antibiotic resistance, and he was right. With decades of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing, we have dug ourselves a deep hole […]
In country after country, I witness the same sad situation: caring, often-brilliant men and women toil in the health care industry to care for others, but to do so they must battle the system itself. That system has lost sight of what matters, which is humans caring for other human beings. To simplify things a […]
