One of my favorite scenes in the recent Apollo 11 IMAX film was a dramatic panning shot of mission control moments before lift-off. Row after row of mission specialists, engineers, astronauts, communications technicians — all looking ahead in silent, u…
I recently read an article called “Inefficiency and luxury” in which the author stated that he has never tried to get any frequent flyer rewards, and in fact doesn’t even have a frequent flyer number. This statement left me a bit confused w…
You’ve probably heard this one in one format or another: kid gets wisdom teeth yanked, dentist prescribes a handful of Vicodin, next thing you know, he’s on the street busking for change to pan the man for the big H. Meanwhile, the dentist is on cruise…
You’ve probably heard this one in one format or another: kid gets wisdom teeth yanked, dentist prescribes a handful of Vicodin, next thing you know, he’s on the street busking for change to pan the man for the big H. Meanwhile, the dentist is on cruise…
A 69-year-old man with a medical history of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity with a body mass index of 33 was admitted with altered mental status. He and his wife were returning from a 14-day Alaskan cruise. On their return, the wife started noticin…
Self-compassion. Perhaps this sounds like a contradiction in terms. Compassion is expressed for others, not oneself. Compassion, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress with a desire to allevi…
This eating contest season, there was only one death this year, as far as I can determine. A 41-year-old California man died in August while participating in a taco eating contest at a minor league baseball game. The coroner said he choked to death. In…
What is the unspoken fatal epidemic of our time? And the greatest predictor of overall health, happiness, job satisfaction, and resiliency? Loneliness. As a clinical cardiologist, I am committed to the health and well-being of my patients. As a recover…
I always knew there were disparities regarding men and women in the field of medicine. However, at the beginning of my training, these inequalities seemed so fictional to me, I could only compare them to dragons and unicorns. The fact that this topic w…
As people, we often have multiple stories to tell, from different perspectives. Multiple stories and perspectives can be wed or braided together around the same themes. Here we braid together two separate perspectives of a patient author and a physicia…
