At LGBTQ health conferences, I am always impressed by how much care and consideration is given to providing a safer space for all who are present. For example, the check-in process typically involves a volunteer asking the attendee whether or not they …
On the matter of climate change and global warming, the fuse is lit. The current epoch of Earth is the “Anthropocene,” meaning that for the foreseeable future, the destiny of our planet will be mainly determined by human activity. In the past half-cent…
This is the scenario. You (or your mother) were admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. On the third day a cheery continuing care nurse comes in and says, “You don’t have a fever, and the doctors feel you can be discharged to finish your course of ant…
There are those 25 minutes before my workday begins that I either drive in silence, or blare the radio and jam out to pop hits priming myself for the unexpected hours ahead. When the music is loud, and the tempo is upbeat, it transports me back to bein…
Senator Walsh … thank you. Because of your flagrant words against some of the hardest-working members of our medical community, we have united to stand against you and rally for our “card-playing” nurses. Like most of my medical famil…
There is a species of jellyfish that exists only in one lake on this entire planet. Every morning, before the sun rises, these jellyfish travel to the surface of the lake so that algae that live within them can photosynthesize and produce glucose for …
During this hospital stay, how often did doctors treat you with courtesy and respect? Seriously? Why is this question even necessary? Obviously, because it doesn’t always happen. Well, that’s interesting. Maybe interesting isn’t the word. Maybe …
Recently, I was at a health care facility in a semi-urban region, less than 100 miles from a major metro. It had a whiff of industry from good times that have long drifted by. I tried to locate a Starbucks. Google Maps spotted one and took me towards t…
An excerpt from Frankie: How One Woman Prevented a Pharmaceutical Disaster. Between September 1960 and November 1961, when the news broke around the world about thalidomide’s responsibility for the birth of deformed babies, Dr. Frances Kelsey — F…
Thank you to the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists for the honor of keynoting AACE 2019 this weekend. The picture above was the Q&A session in the exhibit hall after the keynote. As you can see, there continues to be tremendous phys…
