Most physicians think little about prescriptions after they hand them off to their patients. But patients can face shame and humiliation when filling a prescription.
Most physicians think little about prescriptions after they hand them off to their patients. But patients can face shame and humiliation when filling a prescription.
When did doctors become “providers”? The term has a deliberate sterility to it that wrings out any sense of humanity, and connotes a widgetlike framework for that which is being “provided.”
In 1990, seeking to keep pace with the rapid advances in medicine, the American Board of Internal Medicine initiated the “recertification process.” Now, doctors must take an exam every 10 years.
So much of medicine is about “doing something,” but in some cases doing nothing may be the best course of action.
"...a journal of uncommon literary quality." Now ready for its second decade! Come join the celebration on October 30th. Read the latest review of the BLR.
How to make pharmaceutical R&D worthy of James Bond-like drama? It's not easy, but Ann Patchett gamely tries.
There are few situations more horrible than having to tell another human being that he or she is going to die. And it doesn’t get any easier with experience...
A news report from MedPage about the Bellevue Literary Review and the Bellevue Literary Press.
The presence of computers in the exam room has had another consequence. Both physically and psychologically it has placed a wedge in the doctor-patient relationship.
On 9/11, doctors and nurses swarmed Bellevue Hospital, ready to help the injured from the twin towers. But we weren't ready for happened next.
Chloë Atkins is the type of patient that every doctor dreads—presenting with a plethora of symptoms that don’t offer any obvious medical explanation. There are multitudes of such patients in a general practitioner’s roster and most, thankfully, will not turn out to have a serious illness. But there are a few who do, and as…
She eyed the cool, glistening water, watching her friends swim. Gushes of water lapped over the edge, dousing the riverbank’s knot of weeds and rushes. She chided herself for forgetting her bathing suit. But this outing hadn’t been planned...
Danielle Ofri speaks on Minnesota Public Radio about why would anyone choose to become a doctor. Here the story now. Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share on Twitter Tell a friend
The awe of discovering the human body. The honor of being trusted to give advice. The gratitude for helping someone through a difficult illness. These things never grow old.
It was a year into our relationship when my patient finally told me the truth. No wonder he couldn’t keep his medications straight.
Mr. S received the unwelcome news that he was H.I.V. positive, though his T-cell count was still in the normal range. His T-cell count stayed high enough to protect him from opportunistic infections. He seemed to be one of the rare, lucky “nonprogressors.” But after several years of consistently robust T-cell counts, one of the…
There is something about a first friend that is irreplaceable. No matter how disparately your lives travel, the first friend you ever had occupies a special place in your heart. I was lucky that Michael was considerate enough to be born four months before me, waiting next door, ready to join me in elaborate childhood…
I could understand why other people might prefer euphemisms for death, but why medical professionals? Weren’t we supposed to be much more comfortable with the workings of the human body? Didn’t we pride ourselves on our technical accuracy? Didn’t we say “umbilicus” instead of “belly button”?
We imagine medicine as a rational science, and we imagine our attention to our lives and our bodies pays off in reasonably predictable ways. But I have to admit that random, irrational, unplanned events can often have greater effects on overall health.
For doctors who have waded into social media, however gingerly, many questions arise. Is posting a medical musing or details of a recent party on Twitter or Facebook the same as chatting with colleagues while walking down the hall of the hospital? Do the same rules of etiquette and liability apply to this extremely public…
By the time I finished residency, I was filled with 10 years worth of “war stories”. Almost more painful than the physical exhaustion was the emotional weariness of lugging around so many stories. Unable to contemplate starting yet another round of medical training, I traded in my medical journal subscriptions for a pile of novels…
As report cards go, this one was pretty depressing. The Women’s Health Care Report Card for 2010 from the National Women's Law Center showed a nation failing the majority of its population. Not a single state in our fine union received a “Satisfactory” grade. Not one!
I ducked into the ladies' room at La Guardia Airport in New York for a pitstop before boarding my flight. Inside I encountered a housekeeper washing the floors. She flashed me a broad smile. "Doctora," she said, and then hesitated. I could see that she was waiting for a response. "Recuerdame?"
The urge to anthologize seems to be one of those primordial drives, nestled in our genomes alongside the compulsions to eat heartily, imbibe lustily, and slaughter enemies willfully. Or at least that’s how the Greeks appear to have experienced it.
At first glance, it might seem odd that a public health journal would initiate a section about arts and humanities. Public health, after all, deals with populations; it eschews the individual except as it forms one of a group. The creative arts, however, deal almost exclusively with individuals. Literature, in particular, always has a protagonist,…
Death is a given in medicine. That truism, though, doesn’t offer much comfort when it’s your patient who has died. I was in clinic the other day, showing the ropes to a fresh-faced medical student, when a nurse leaned toward me and whispered that L.W. had died over the holiday weekend. It was like a…
While I’ve been typing, the character number has been counting backward from 1,000, and now I’ve hit zero. The computer will not permit me to say anything more about my patient.
A young, healthy patient called me recently requesting a CT scan of his head because of his headaches. He described his symptoms, and they sounded to me like migraines. His clinical picture was not suggestive of a brain tumor and I told him so, but he was persistent. “What if I’m the one 35-year-old who…
The airline passenger who refused to allow a security pat-down made national headlines quickly. The idea of a stranger touching a person’s intimate areas makes most people cringe. But something like this occurs every day in the doctor’s office.
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