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Latest Posts

Being A Diabetic Parent Isn’t Easy

Lead by Korey Hood and Stefan Rubin, the Parenting with Type 1 Diabetes session at Friends for Life was aiming to touch upon the different challenges of being a parent with type 1 diabetes, instead of the concentration on parenting a child with type 1 diabetes that Children With Diabetes was once known for.  This was my first year attending this session, and I sat between two of my best friends in the diabetes community – Scott and George.

“So thanks for coming, you guys.  We’re here to talk about parenting with type 1 diabetes,” said Korey.

At this point, people started doing introductions.  “Hi, I’m So-and-So and I was diagnosed with diabetes in 1998.”  or “I’ve been diabetic for 16 years and I have three children.”  Only introductions.  That’s it.

So why was I already crying? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*

Killing Lice At $500 A Head

What’s one of the fastest growing healthcare fields? A professional nitpicker — as in the profession of picking lice out of hair.

In a recent New York Times story, it’s becoming apparent that parents will do anything to get rid of lice. Part of it is the stigma associated with it, part of it is the “ickiness” factor. As a parent myself, I certainly understand the sentiment. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

Does Your Parent Need Nursing Home Care?


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One of the great blessings of my life is that my 91-year-old father, whom I dearly love, lives in the apartment building next door.  After sixty-six years of marriage, he’s been living alone since my mother’s death last March. He is still sharp as a tack, as he might say.   Read more »

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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