A good friend of mine, B., once told me a few years ago that before her divorce, her husband was verbally and occasionally even physically abusive toward her. Somewhat shocked by this news, I expressed how glad I was that she had gotten out of that situation. I did not think that B. would be […]
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 52-year-old man is evaluated in follow-up after being diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea 8 weeks ago. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) was prescribed based on a titration during in-laboratory polysomnography. He notes some improvement in his sleep with CPAP, […]
Being a hospitalized patient is perhaps one of the most disempowering experiences an individual can face (besides being in war, or a prisoner). Patients face constant uncertainty; having no idea what time their physician will visit, when they will be taken for their tests, or who will suddenly interrupt them again with a demand – […]
As we follow the national opioid epidemic, with its greater than five deaths per hour from opioid overdoses, the focus is shifting to methods for limiting an individual’s exposure to these drugs. For most of us, our first contact with these highly addictive medications is after surgery. Studies now reveal that 60 percent of pills […]
Well, cement trucks and health care used to have a lot in common. Now all of that has changed. Cement plants have a market that is determined by the time it takes for special trucks to transport wet cement and get it in place before it sets. We see those cement trucks out on the […]
Time is our most valuable resource. It’s nonrenewable — once spent, you can’t get it back. We all understand this logically to varying degrees. But many of us feel the compulsion to manipulate time, to restructure it to fit our lifestyles. “Make the time,” is the common expression, as if we could create something out […]
Hippocrates wrote the Oath for Physicians about 2,500 years ago, and numerous translations and variations have emerged for medical students to take, usually at graduation time. That era of Western medicine had great changes so that an oath appeared necessary to protect the patients in those ancient times. The thrust of the Hippocratic Oath included […]
On a curiously warm morning last February, the minister arrived at my childhood home to guide my father to the other side. When he approached the bedside where all of us were gathered around with the Eagles Pandora radio humming in the background, my dad emerged from a semi-conscious state and sat up as best […]
It was a sunny morning in July, and I was scheduled at the outpatient center with the oral and maxillofacial surgeons for teeth extractions. One of my patients was your son, an athletic teenager, whose only medical history was asthma. According to you and him, he had not experienced any recent asthma attacks and had […]
When I think back to the original meaning of the word “doctor,” I believe we may have lost our way in the physician/patient interaction. The word “doctor” originates from the Latin word, meaning to teach. As a physician and educator, I can’t remember the last time I went to the doctor and was taught something. […]
