Surviving suicide loss is difficult. And in some sense, the resulting grief is open-ended. I am a mother and doctor whose two sons died by suicide associated with psychotic bipolar disorder. My ever-present sensitivity to the fierce loss of death by suicide is again touched when I hear of death by suicide. The suicides of […]
It is a little after 9 a.m. I am about to start the second of a long list of endoscopy cases when my phone rings. I glance briefly at the caller ID to confirm it isn’t my office or the hospital calling about another patient, and am quickly overcome with dread as I see the […]
Summer is upon us, and with it comes the end of the academic year, graduations and the arrival of the newest crop of interns. Soon these fresh-faced physicians will enter into one of the most remarkable educational experiences of their medical careers: residency. Many of these soon-to-be-interns are looking to attendings now for advice on […]
In the context of human evolution, a vestigial organ is defined as one that has lost all or most of its original function through evolution. Charles Darwin provided a list of vestigial human organs in “The Descent of Man,” including the muscles of the ear, wisdom teeth, the appendix, the coccyx, body hair and the […]
You are a child of Thanos. “Hear me and rejoice!” “You have had the privilege of being saved by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. (Yeah, I know we said the same thing when we prescribed low-fat diets to decrease the risk of heart disease, but you gotta give us a […]
