The announcement that the next iteration of the Apple Watch can both monitor the wearer’s heart rhythm and, if a suspicious reading emerges, perform an electrocardiogram, could be a boon for users and their doctors. Or it could be a massive headache for the health care system. The new watch continuously monitors the wearer’s heart rate. It […]
So many moving parts. Just last week, a patient I’ve cared for over 20 years came to see me, and she was despondent over a number of issues. First and foremost was that her partner of over 60 years has had progressive dementia, and finally things got so bad that he had to be transferred […]
Every few months, there happens to be another breathless news story about racism in health care. Mass media seems shocked, progressives angrily tweet, while conservatives claim that somehow it was all President Obama’s fault. Meanwhile, the four relatively unknown and certainly underappreciated historically black college or university (HBCU) medical schools in the United States (Howard […]
Informed consent is the cornerstone of medical ethics. And every physician must defend this sacred principle from every form of evil that would seek to dismantle, degrade and debase it. If informed consent is the sun, then privacy, confidentiality, dignity, and trust are planets that go around it. For without informed consent, the descent of […]
An excerpt from the Docs Outside the Box podcast, episode 4: Financial Ed. for Docs 101 Dr. Nii: All right, everyone. Welcome to another episode of “Docs Outside the Box.” We have a treat for you today. Today, we’re going to be interviewing Katie Brewer, CFP, and owner of Your Richest Life. Katie, thank you […]
Few things in primary care give patient and doctor mutual and instant gratification. It’s been a while since I reduced a “nursemaid’s elbow” or a spontaneous shoulder dislocation other than my own, or a finger dislocation, but those all count. I once wrote about curing deafness in a man with a movement disorder by flushing ear […]
Guess what? You’re surrounded by rich doctors. You probably didn’t even know it. You know why? Because doctors don’t talk about that filthy lucre known as money. So while you’re assuming that all the other doctors in your group, office building, and hospital are in the same position as you, you’re wrong. Some of them are rich. There […]
Because of my father When you lose a parent during childhood, it effects just about everything you become. Decisions about life naturally stem from enduring this trauma. Some try to form families early and replace that which they feel has been lost. Others spurn close connections and create a wall so firm that no one else […]
I looked at my life through the lens of an outsider: It looked pretty good. Funding. Presentations. Publications. Great job, and a great family. Check, check, check. I looked at my life through my own lens, an insider: a mess. Exhaustion. Absent from my closest relationships. Chronically feeling like I was dropping the ball, because […]
In July, 2009, the family of Massachusetts teenager Yarushka Rivera went to their local Walgreens to pick up Topomax, an anti-seizure drug that had been keeping her epilepsy in check for years. Rivera had insurance coverage through MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid insurance program for low-income children, and never ran into obstacles obtaining this life-saving medication. […]
