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Woman Inspired By Her Fellow Diabetic “Sisters”

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For the last three days, I was out in San Diego for the Weekend for Women: Celebration of Strength conference, and throughout the course of my quick, two and a half day trip, I met so many inspiring women.  And I heard so many inspiring things.

Brandy Barnes, creator of the Diabetes Sisters organization, opened the session by talking about dispelling some of the myths and misconceptions of life with all kinds of diabetes.  “Fight the mental battle of making our diabetes management a priority, while juggling the competing forces of jobs, family, friends … we have this all in common.”  Everyone in the room was living with type 1, type 2, or LADA (and with one self-proclaimed “Type weird”, Ms. Natalie Sera, who I had the pleasure of meeting and hugging).

Natalie rules.  And all of her dresses have pockets!
“Lets wrap our arms around them and help them feel like they are part of our sisterhood,” Brandy said, encouraging those who have attended the conferences in the past to reach out to new attendees.

That was the theme of the weekend – reaching out and being there.  There were many speakers (and I was very honored to be one of them, on a panel with some fellow insulin pumpers, talking about diabetes and technology), and their topics varied but their messages all contained the common thread of community.

Susan Jung Guzman, Phd and Director of Clinical Services at the Behavioral Diabetes Institute, spoke about Read more »

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

Keeping Up With New Things: Nurse Decides To Go Back To School

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Nursing instructors grading Exams in the 1950s. Courtesy of Johns Hopkins Medical Archives on Flickr.


I remember it well. Cramming all night for a nursing exam, taking the test, and hoping for the best. It was a nerve racking experience for the students, but I’ve always wondered what it was like for the instructors. Check out these old gals. Grading papers was time consuming before computerized tests, but I bet they got some pretty entertaining answers.

Miss Jones, Medical Surgical Instructor: “Oh my God, I can’t believe this answer. It’s right up there with the excuse, “my dog ate my care plan.”

Mrs. Smith, OB/GYN Instructor: “I know what you mean. These young people are the future of our profession. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Nurse Ratched's Place*

Migraine With A Visual Aura: It Might Be Scintillating Scotoma

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Nothing like experiencing a medical condition first-hand to really help a doctor understand it from the patient’s point of view. After all these years, I had my first (and hopefully last) scintillating scotoma while sitting on the couch playing “words with friends” on my ipad and watching TV. A scotoma is a partial loss of vision in a normal visual field. Scintillate is flashing, sparkles. Put them together and you have moving, flashing sparkles with a blind spot in your eyes.

This visual aura was first described in the 19th century by a Dr. Hubert Airy who had migraine headaches. The visual sparks and flashes are in a zig-zag pattern and they can precede a migraine headache or occur without any pain. The scotoma affects both eyes and closing one or the other does not make it go away. Sometimes Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

ER Physician Amazed By The Technological Advancements In Medicine

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My father in law, now deceased, was a nephrologist. I met him while I was in medical school. He was a reserved guy, not prone to butt into what he saw as others’ business. So I still remember that while I was considering what sort of residency to pursue, he took a surprisingly strong stance that I should go into interventional radiology. His reasoning was simple: they have a great lifestyle, they make bags and bags and bags of money, and they get to play with all the coolest gadgets.

It was tempting, I admit. As anyone who knows me can attest, I am ALL about the gadgets. I’m not averse to bags of money either. But I never gave it much consideration, mostly because I am just not real good at radiology, though for an ER doc I do OK. (A low bar, it is true.)

I sometimes regret that decision. For example, I wrote the other day about a gentleman who presented with a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. We had some heroic fun in the ER resuscitating him and getting him to the OR. After the fact, I had to wonder whether it was all in vain — Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*

Doctors Use ECMO To Save A 19-Year-Old’s Life

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Robert Loftus

Robert Loftus

On August 5, 2011,19-year-old Robert Loftus tripped while catching the game-winning touchdown pass in a football game with friends. He broke his leg — both his tibia and fibula — and was rushed to the ER at Hudson Valley Hospital Center. On the morning of the 6th, he was visited by his orthopedist, Dr. Steven Small, and surgery to place a rod in his broken leg was scheduled for 3 pm that day. Just as the operation was beginning, however, the anesthesiologist was alarmed to find that Robert’s lungs were dangerously filling with fluid. The surgery was called off, and while still in the OR, Robert was put on a mechanical ventilator.

Robert had developed a severe case of ARDS, or acute respiratory distress syndrome; his lungs were failing. After four days on the ventilator, Robert’s breathing was not improving; on the contrary, it was rapidly getting worse. Recognizing the severity of his patient’s condition, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Columbia University Department of Surgery Blog*

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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