It doesn’t take long in the practice of medicine, indeed in the training for the practice of medicine, to learn humility. To understand our limits in our understanding of a disease process, in our abilities to heal patients, and in our own importance in the grand scheme of things. Yet as physicians and as experts […]
When Pneumonia Kills Healthy Adults
Christmas Eve this year brought news of ESPN reporter, Ed Aschoff, dying that day, also his 34th birthday, after being treated for pneumonia. I did not know of him, but soon I was reading his Twitter profile. Earlier in the month he had shared the following: It’s hauntingly sad to read that now. I can […]
Death, Decrepitude and Familial Guilt
Life. Death. One of the greatest truths I have learned in medicine is that death is normal. Society operates from the standpoint that if we do “everything possible” death will not come. But death comes to everyone. And sometimes death is ugly, very ugly. I have come to the realization that we do a disservice […]
Living in Fear – When Patients Kill Doctors
As humans, we judge the people that we meet even before we know anything about them. Even before we hear what they have to say, we have categorized them in a box – “nice”, “stupid”, “racist”. When we hear bad or unpleasant news, it is tough for us to separate our feelings about that news […]
The Angry Patient
I think if I were a police officer and spoke about how I was abused by those I served, people would understand. It’s tough being a cop. You are not appreciated, you are vilified, and you are viewed as corrupt, yet all you ever wanted to do was to serve, protect, and help. If I […]