Facing the Water
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… More
"Quality" Medical Care
We all want “quality” medical care. But how should quality actually be measured? Quality is one of those words that used to mean something. Nowadays in hospital hallways, quality is a charged word that is more corporate-speak than actual English.
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Why Would Anyone Become a Doctor?
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. More
“Noncompliant” Patient?
It was a year into our relationship when my patient finally told me the truth. No wonder he couldn’t keep his medications straight. More
Stereotyping Patients and their Ailments
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 nurse practitioners had a hunch. More
Lives Cut Short by Depression
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 games of hide-and-seek, multilevel couch forts and family camping trips in the Catskills. More
Doctors and the D Word….
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?” More
Health and Luck of the Draw
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. More
Doctors on Facebook
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 environment? More
For Whom Do We Write
Was writing simply cathartic, an unloading of pent-up frustration, pain, occasional exhilaration? Or was this part of a nobler cause, something that would fall under the purview of healing, something with ultimate benefit for my patients? For if it wasn’t the latter, was I not simply exploiting my patients for their readily accessible drama? More
Report Card on Women’s Health: "F"
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! More
Medicine Out of Context
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?” More
Maladies, Remedies, and Anthologies: Medicine Taken at Its Word
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. More
Chekhov and Public Health
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, and the protagonist is never “alcoholics with pancreatitis,” “female prisoners receiving hepatitis B vaccination,” “South Asians with cardiovascular risk factors,” “UK asylum seekers with infectious disease,” or “teenaged asthmatic smokers.” A protagonist is an individual.
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Doctor at the Funeral
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 sucker-punch in the gut, the raw rope of grief lashing out unexpectedly. More
