“Do you talk to someone?” Sometimes a question stops you in your tracks. The Lifestyle Medicine retreat hired me to see all the attendees on medications for blood pressure or diabetes. In this retreat they would learn about healthy lifestyle changes. They would experience a healthy diet with food cooked for them, a morning exercise …Read More
Category: Physician
This Is Going to Hurt ~ Adam Kay
The double doors burst open breaking the anticipatory silence. The ambulance had called ahead. The paramedics rushed the gurney into the emergency room bay. One person was on the gurney doing chest compressions. One of the other voices yelled, “62-year-old African American female found unresponsive…” As the medical student, I had been prepped by my …Read More
When is the doctor coming?
Wearing a face mask covers the patch of gray that is now my beard. When the lady at the cash register confuses me for one of the college students, I smile inside. I suddenly realize that the mask makes me look decades younger… and I like looking younger! As middle age has stealthily set in, …Read More
Neonatal Step-Down Unit
“You seem traumatized,” said my friend the neonatologist–a pediatrician that takes care of newborn babies. I was telling the story of my very first rotation decades earlier as a medical resident fresh from medical school. I was assigned to the neonatal step down unit where I was expected to be the doctor. The unit had …Read More
The Family Doctor ~ Edgar A. Guest
“I take simple everyday things that happen to me and I figure it happens to a lot of other people and I make simple rhymes out of them.” ~ Edgar A. Guest (1881 – 1959) A high school dropout, Edgar joined the Free Press newspaper in Detroit in 1895 and stayed for 60 years. After …Read More
Motivating lasting change: Fear vs. Efficacy
About 40 years ago, dentists in Connecticut ran an experiment.1 They wanted to know how to motivate people to brush and floss their teeth. They decided to try the well-known tactic–scare them into doing it. They randomized a large group of subjects into two groups. They gave one group an informational video of why and …Read More
The Doctor ~ Luke Fildes
Medical education has long praised the advances in medical science. We cannot deny that scientific advances like antibiotics and new surgical techniques have saved lives. In fact, the first couple years of medical school in the United States focuses on anatomy, physiology, biology, pharmacology, and many other -ologies. In 1890, as medical science was advancing, …Read More
This changes everything…
During my training as a doctor, I spent several months in the Pediatric Emergency Room. Babies with fever, kids with diarrhea and dehydration, asthmatics with breathing attacks — the common problems were common. The Director of the Pediatric Emergency Department was a thin woman, blonde, and well-organized. She never missed a day of work. The …Read More
Walking Home
As a resident doctor, I remember the intense days with overnight shifts, very little sleep, and emotional roller coasters. Most patients come to the hospital at their lowest. Over time, I just became numb to the endless cycle of new faces with the same problems—chest pain, fever, abdominal pain, shortness of breath, and only sometimes …Read More
Drinking water from a firehose
It’s 9am as I enter the back of the lecture hall. I glance towards my usual seat — left side, off center, four rows back. I pause at the top of the steps. My eyes adjust to the dim of the indoor lights against the dark industrial carpet. From the back of the lecture hall, …Read More