It has become a sign of legitimacy to call a personal problem “medical.” This aims to distinguish the problem from those of morality or character. It implies both that the problem is serious, and that it is unbidden and largely out of the sufferer’s control. Unfortunately, it isn’t clear what exactly qualifies as “medical,” so […]
Fair and just societies protect children. The Trump administration’s unconscionable practice of separating children from their families at the border between Mexico and the United States is making me rethink what kind of society I live in. The images and the stories are heartbreaking. In an effort to deter families from migrating to the United States, reports say the […]
In an era where health information is freely flowing thanks to the internet and Dr. Google, I’ve come to expect that patients who see me for the first time will have done their homework — about their cancer, treatment options, and yes, even about me. To be frank, it’s not uncommon for patients to mention they’ve […]
We’ve all seen the news and heard the stories about children being separated from their parents as they cross over the U.S. border. The pictures of human beings, including very young children, behind wire mesh (some argue that they are not really cages) is simply horrifying. Over the past decades, we have seen atrocities happening […]
There are so many theories out there about what we should or shouldn’t be doing with our complex and fragmented health care system. We are facing a perfect storm of factors: an aging population, a huge increase in chronic disease, new and expensive treatments, and rising expectations of what care we should be receiving. All […]
I’ve been a doctor for one year. Two years of clinical rotations in medical school ill-prepared me for the reality of this job. Not that I went to bad medical school by any means; working in health care is simply something you can’t learn from a textbook or even on the sidelines as a marginally […]
Since the two very sudden public suicide deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, society has again recognized that we never know what is under the surface of another’s façade. As physicians, these tragic occurrences emphasize that our caregiving requires seeing the entirety of an individual’s many parts. While we acknowledge that the façade is […]
The recent prominence of the #MeToo movement has shined a light at many places in our society where insidious or even obvious sexism against women has long gone unremarked. Even when noticed it’s just shrugged off as the way things are. In honor of this, #MeToo was named Person of the Year for 2017 by Time Magazine. Medicine […]
The recent suicides of an NYU resident and a medical student highlight the growing mental health problem among physicians and physicians-in-training in this country. This crisis is certainly not exclusive to physicians, as evidenced by the suicides of designer Kate Spade and television personality Anthony Bourdain. However, suicide among physicians is of particular concern. A […]
Dear CVS, Please change your hold music. Please. Do the right thing. It’ll take you, or someone who works for you, or even a barely pubescent adolescent who nevertheless knows how to program music on his iPhone with more aplomb than anyone born before 1975, only about 48 seconds. And 48 seconds is substantially less […]
