A Tale of Two Phone Calls
There’s a lot we can learn from animals in many facets of life—Lord knows, a nice massage behind the ears could do a lot of us some good—but I am consistently impressed by how much smoother veterinary medicine runs. More
Social Mission of Med Schools
What exactly is the mission of a medical school? Is it to train the best and smartest doctors? Is to tend to our nation’s health? Is it to further medical knowledge? More
Abortion: The View From Both Sides of the Street
A dispassionate discourse on the abortion wars in America? Not something that seems possible, at least in the current polarized culture in the United States. Into the fray comes the documentary “12th and Delaware,” a quiet movie that seeks to illuminate rather than bully. More
Palliative Care: From the Get-Go
The scientific world finally produced the data to support what seems so obvious: Palliative care belongs in the beginning of cancer treatment, not just at the end. More
The Patient’s Voice
Not long ago I learned that these side effects listed on the package insert are not the ones the patient actually complains of. No, they are the symptoms the patients’ doctors choose to report, the doctors’ impressions of what the patients are describing. More
Endorphins and Overeating
As a primary care internist, my practice spans the common adult ailments—diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, coronary artery disease, arthritis. It is hard not to avoid the difficult truth that obesity, while perhaps not causing all of these illness, certainly exacerbates them greatly. More
Can We Measure a “Good Doctor?”
What do quality measures actually measure? Can they tell us who is a good doctor, or what makes a good doctor? “Quality measures” offer patients a seductively scientific metric of doctors’ performance, but can easily lead them astray. More
Owning Up to Medical Error
Precisely two weeks after completing my medical internship,I proceeded to nearly kill a patient. July marked the start of my second year of residency at New York City’s BellevueHospital, and it was my first time being fully in charge of a patient. More
When Unemployed Means Unhealthy Too
Research confirms what physicians observe and what everyone seems to know in their gut: losing a job is bad for our health. Our crazy patchwork system that ties health insurance to our jobs means that the recession—and its “jobless recovery”—are damaging our nation’s health. More
Residency Regulators are Back!
Every patient wants a doctor who is well rested and alert, but limiting residents to 80 hours per week wasn’t as simple a panacea as it seemed. In fact, the 80-hour workweek did not decrease errors and did not increase sleep time for the doctors. More
The Pastor’s Son
There was a sharp rap at the apartment door. When Samuel Chuks Nwanko opened it, he saw a young man standing in the hallway wearing a stained denim jacket over a University of Nigeria T-shirt. The whites of his eyes were spidered with crimson streaks. He was probably a fellow university student, but not in the civil engineering department. Samuel didn’t recognize him. More
Why Patients Don’t Take Their Meds
For a substantial number of people, medicine from a prescription is automatically suspect. But if it comes from a health food store, there’s not a hint of concern. More
A Patient, a Death, but No One to Grieve
What if a patient dies and nobody is there to mourn? Is it like a tree falling silently in the forest? More
Scenes From the Lives They Lived in the City
”Nine P.M.,” somebody shouted. ”Rikers bus rollin’ in!” I stepped out of the Bellevue E.R. into the chilly spring night to see what the excitement was. Just pulling in was a school bus, the kind I’d taken every day in elementary school… More
Treating Patients When Language Is Only One of the Barriers
A defective heart, a child detained by border guards — Julia Barquero had already had her struggles. But now her physician at Bellevue Hospital Center, Dr. Danielle Ofri, was trying to explain to Ms. Barquero that she could not receive a heart transplant because she was an illegal immigrant. More
