When I was young, I often heard my elders say, ‘there ain’t no free lunch.’ It wasn’t until becoming a medical intern and resident that I discovered not only are some lunches free, but also dinners, books, bags, shirts and even trips to wonderful resorts and hotels. That is if you didn’t mind having them […]
Continue readingPainful Progress
December 19, 2010 
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The problem with pain is that it is what we say it is. One patient may rate their pain a 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the absolute worse), while a similar patient with similar pain may rate theirs as a two. And there is no objective way to tell […]
Continue readingShare and Share Alike
December 15, 2010 1 Comment
She looked at me through red-rimmed eyes. Whether from lack of sleep, or from constantly rubbing her frontal sinuses, her eyes were a giveaway that she was ill. “My ears are full, my sinuses are clogged,” she began, “my throat is raw and I can’t stop coughing and this (as she pointed to her head) […]
Continue readingCosts of Care
December 12, 2010 0 Comments
“What am I going to do now Doc?” asked Mike, a down on his luck, 29 year–old recently unemployed truck driver, as he handed me his hospital bill. Mike was seen at our local emergency department on a Friday evening with complaints of indigestion. Earlier that day he and his wife Susan celebrated their second […]
Continue readingDollars for Donuts
December 8, 2010 0 Comments
Those crazy Brits. It seems that health authorities in the United Kingdom recommended against using the PSA (prostatic specific antigen) blood test to screen for prostate cancer. The UK National Screening Committee began looking at the results of several major studies and determined that the blood test generated more false positives—the test suggesting cancer, when […]
Continue readingWhen I’m 64
December 5, 2010 0 Comments
“Will you still see me next year?” Her question threw me, as I thought the visit had gone well. She’s been my patient for the past four years. She originally came to me when her earlier physician decided to join a concierge practice. His new medical practice doesn’t take insurance and patients pay cash if they […]
Continue readingAlphabet Soup
December 1, 2010 0 Comments
So many letters, so little time. At least that’s what I thought when I read the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) new report on dietary intake of calcium and vitamin D. For the last three years, reports and studies began to surface indicating that most Americans were deficient in vitamin D. Experts attributed this deficiency to […]
Continue readingSafety First
November 28, 2010 0 Comments
Is it safe? No, this isn’t a replay from the movie “Marathon Man” (1976). It’s what several health policy experts asked about safe practices at hospitals. Researchers combed over 2,300 hospital records (2002 to 2007) of 10 random hospitals in North Carolina. What they found, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, were 588 […]
Continue readingOn This Eve of Giving Thanks
November 24, 2010 0 Comments
We’re living in thoughtful times. Everyday in healthcare I am humbled by the care, compassion and thoughtfulness exhibited by the staff at our hospitals and clinics. They don’t show this because it’s prescribed in a handbook, or policy and procedure. They’re not after a high rating on the next patient care survey. They don’t need […]
Continue readingUnintended Consequences
November 21, 2010 1 Comment
Joe is a guy that never really cared about his health. He is overweight, according to any objective standard, and always attributes this to “bigger muscles” (it isn’t). He dutifully comes in once a year, but admittedly only because of his wife’s insistence. She worries about his lack of exercise, his growing abdominal midsection (“muscle”) […]
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