I was taking care of a middle-aged patient recently who was experiencing a recurrent bout of diverticulitis this time severe and with a small abscess. It’s at a stage where surgery to remove part of the colon is necessary but the surgeon wants to let things “cool down” for a few weeks. So my role […]
Everybody is Talking about Ebola these Days
There are several infections that I am naturally scared of. One of these is Ebola virus disease (Ebola hemorrhagic fever) caused by one of several strains of an Ebola virus. It isn’t the only virus capable of causing a hemorrhagic fever however. Lassa fever, Marburg virus fever, yellow fever, which used to cause epidemics in […]
Medical Residents and Death Certificates
A recent study has put the process of filling out a death certificate in the spotlight. Barbara Wexelman, MD and coauthors published an article a couple of weeks ago in the CDC’s Preventing Chronic Disease which showed that about 50% to 60% of medical residents from more than half of residency programs in New York […]
It’s Official – I Have an American Accent
For the third time since moving to “the real America” patients have confided in me their distaste, distrust, and disapproval of “foreign doctors”. Each time I wonder if they are secretly talking about me but no these are patients who have no qualms putting their doctor in her or his place. Like the man who […]
All Die Be Die
My interest in HIV/AIDS is in changing people’s behaviours and attitudes about their self-perceived risk of acquiring the infection. At this time, the ongoing epidemic in Africa does not stem from ignorance. People know the basics of what HIV/AIDS is and how it is spread. One can blame our religious and political leaders in that […]