When I was working in the hospital in the pediatric ward as a resident doctor-in-training, one of the patients that was admitted frequently was a Down’s Syndrome child with a cleft palate. The cleft palate is an incomplete closure of the roof of the mouth that separates it from the nasal area above. Functionally, this …Read More
Category: Physician
Honoring Sacrifice
Sacrifice, verb Last week, I toured a local health center run by a non-profit. They offer healthcare to underserved populations on a sliding scale basis. There are many ways to give, including the monetary donations of the many names that cover the walls to make the mission of greater healthcare access possible. While many at …Read More
Transforming Your Life Story
At some point while working full time as a hospitalist doctor nearly two decades ago, I began to feel thin. I remember standing outside leaving a meeting at the home of one of the other doctors. The day was sunny and warm, just before the start of the really hot summer in Florida. The heat …Read More
How humanity doubled life expectancy in a century ~ Steven Johnson
One hundred years ago, life expectancy in most countries was less than 45 years. But if you are born today, the amount of life years that you can expect is over 70 years. How did we nearly double life expectancy in a century? One answer might be the advances in science: antibiotics, medications, sanitation, and …Read More
The Day That Broke Me
Admit or send home. The emergency room doctors have one basic decision. Is this person sick enough that they need to be admitted to the hospital? Or can they be treated and sent home to follow-up in the clinic? If you need hospital care, you are admitted under the care of your doctor. But if …Read More
When Breath Becomes Air ~ Paul Kalanithi
“In that first year, I would glimpse my share of death. I sometimes saw it while peeking around corners, other times while feeling embarrassed to be caught in the same room.” ~ excerpt from Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air In his last year of training to become a neurosurgeon, Dr. Paul Kalanithi is diagnosed …Read More
Fabry Disease ~ Slow Down
I shook the officer’s hand, and he let me go with a warning. Almost 20 years ago, I was driving through the beautiful state of Idaho. I was working there temporarily and exploring the parks and cities within several hours by car. I spent many weekends at Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. …Read More
The Feeling of Love ~ Vivek Murthy
“It is beyond rare to be in the presence of a person holding high governmental office who speaks about love with ease and dignity — and about the agency to be healers that is available to us all,” says Krista Tippett as she introduces Vivek Murthy in her podcast interview. The U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. …Read More
How do we heal medicine? ~ Atul Gawande
“Take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning.” In the pre-penicillin years of the 1930’s, medicine was simple… one person could know and do everything, but doctors could do very little. Now the complexity and the cost of medicine has exploded. How do we deal with complex systems? In 2012, Atul Gawande proposed a …Read More
Form Follows Function ~ I’m teaching anatomy
It’s been over two decades since I walked into the anatomy lab at medical school. Immediately the memory of formaldehyde assaults my senses. Each week, I would change into the same lab outfit. At the end of the year, I threw out those clothes. There was not way to get the smell out of them. …Read More