In March, I began receiving photographs on my social media apps of my daughter’s Match Day celebration seven years ago at Tulane Medical School. It was a glorious day, in particular, because my daughter got her first choice: Not only would she be an in…
In cancer language, it’s not unusual for the medical or scientific meaning of a word to be different from the way the same word is understood in everyday language. Sometimes the difference reflects a focus on populations vs. individuals, and in that ca…
Recently, I made a doctor’s appointment with a new physician at a different hospital system. During my last encounter with our family’s primary care doctor, his angry, unprofessional and unnerving behavior not only scared me at the time — i…
February is a short month. Even this year with leap day. So short. Maybe that is why I am so mad at what Company X did to me. My health insurance company stole eight hours and six minutes from me in February. I will never get it back. This is my story …
I am a retired union plumber with the state of Illinois. I’ve had laparoscopic surgery on both knees, a lower back surgery that required two stainless rods, and I’m not sure how many screws, and three cervical fusions. I now suffer from neu…
A radical change is emerging from within our health care system: Rather than deny or defend medical errors, some hospitals are acknowledging them upfront. This enlightened response has been gaining ground since 2001 when the University of Michigan Hosp…
Ed is not from Kentucky. I believe he told me he is from West Virginia and from a very low-income family. At about 15, he was hit by a car and paralyzed from the waist down. He’s now about 30. But for a guy in a wheelchair, he is nothing short of…
It is a special group, a mish-mash of medical professionals all with a common purpose: Honing the ability to practice medicine in a more empathetic and compassionate manner, which will benefit both the patient and the professional alike. All meet to sh…
As a relatively healthy Medicare patient, I do not visit doctors often. I have had digestive issues most of my life — probably from too many antibiotics when I was a child with recurring strep throat, or so I’m told. My husband and I had just ret…
My husband is a type 2 diabetic with mild chronic kidney disease, which has been well controlled on 500 mg metformin BID plus saxagliptin (AstraZeneca’s Onglyza). At the end of last year, he got a letter from his Medicare Advantage PPO, UnitedHea…
