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Reflections On Chronic Illness – It Can Happen To You

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about being stricken with pneumonia and my reflections on what it must be like for people who live continually with chronic illnesses. I was surprised by the response from many readers, quite a few of whom I’ve never seen comment here, who voiced understanding and even relief that a “normal” would take the time to reflect on what their life might be like.

Well, my illness is continuing even longer than my pulmonologist had expected and this has evoked for me a whole new layer of emotions. I write the following not for sympathy or concern, but rather for the Medicine and Health channel of ScienceBlogs to give voice to those much worse off than I who may not otherwise have a voice in our national health care dialogue. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata*

Gross Male Physician Humor

It’s 2:00 am in the emergency room.  That’s when the real doctor humor stories comes out to play.  By now  I’ve sent two patients home from the ER, one of which I spent 90 minutes discussing why chronic abdominal pain management needed to involve an outpatient supratentorial component and why coming into the hospital would be a highly disappointing experience.   By now I’ve also  admitted two patients to observation status, one of which is a guy with uncontrolled diabetes who remembered me from a year prior and thanked me for telling him nobody else was going to live his life for him and he needed to take responsibility for his poor actions in life.  By now I’ve also brought two patients in for full  hospital admission, one of which was placed immediately on end of life cares for end stage COPD, the other of which who’s son got the wrath of my smoking lecture.

Once the work was done, the doctor humor came out to play.   Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Happy Hospitalist*

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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