Postpartum depression may be a misnomer. A more accurate term might be postpartum neglect — not by mothers, but of mothers.
The human infant is uniquely helpless in the early weeks and months of life. His arms fly up over his head at random moments in a primitive “startle reflex.” His sleep patterns have no rhyme or reason. He eats and poops round the clock. Serving an evolutionary purpose, in part to achieve an upright …
The cherry trees are still there, blossoming every spring, on a patch of land near Stanley Park in Vancouver. They were planted in 1985 by a group of volunteers from AIDS Vancouver, to honor the memory of three Canadian sons who were among the early victims of AIDS. One of these men was Gaetan Dugas, who died in 1984. During this same period in San Francisco, Randy Shilts, a reporter …
I chose to become an OB/GYN because I love delivering babies and bringing joy to expectant parents. It is by far the most rewarding part of my job. Seeing the sense of pride on a new dad’s face, the joyful tears in a happy mother’s eyes, or the inquisitive look of a young big brother or sister is priceless and makes my “job” feel more like a privilege. Bringing a new …
A 38-year-old man is evaluated for a mass in his right neck that he first noticed 2 weeks ago while shaving. The patient also reports experiencing a pressure sensation when swallowing solid foods for the past year and daily diarrhea for the past 2 months. His personal medical history is unremarkable. His …
On an ordinary September morning in 1928, Alexander Fleming, a Scottish bacteriologist working at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, came back from vacation to find that one of his Petri dishes containing Staphylococcus aureus growing in culture had been contaminated by greenish mold.
Instead of throwing a fit, Fleming grew curious over this finding. After …
The lipstick sign is an underutilized physical examination finding which can assist in the evaluation and assessment of the elderly female patient. While poorly applied lipstick can result in considerable embarrassment and anxiety in this patient population, those who present with properly applied lipstick demonstrate mastery of multiple domains of functioning.
Fine motor skills and concentration can be correlated with a positive …
Autism was first reported in the medical literature 70 years ago. In 1943 a child psychologist named Leo Kanner described a child with social difficulties and repetitive, stereotypic movements; the following year Hans Asperger described four such children. Since then we have gradually learned more about what we now call autism spectrum disorders (ASD), although we still do not know what causes it. From early on it was apparent that the …
The numbers about skin cancer incidence and costs in the United States are worse than anyone expected.
That’s the message that comes from a report published recently in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine on research from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the National Cancer Institute.
The researchers took a look at the number of skin cancers …
I have fertility on my mind — and it’s definitely not personal. And it’s really fertility preservation that has me thinking. I recently completed the manuscript of my 10th book — a text for oncology care providers about the provision of psychosocial care to young adults with cancer
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Writing the book was at times frustrating due to the paucity of research and …
Four months ago, a 44-year-old woman was referred to me by her audiologist and ENT for acute deafness of the right ear. She is a healthy woman without any past medical history and was not on any medication. Her otolaryngologist (ENT) could not find any physical reason for the patient’s acute unilateral deafness, including a negative CT scan. She was being referred to me to determine if there was an …
A 40-year-old woman is evaluated for a rash on her hands that has been present for 6 weeks. This rash comes and goes throughout the year and has been present for many years, but never as severe as it is now. She also experiences itchy skin on her body. She had eczema …
Last year, Dean Dupuy, 46, an engineer at Apple, suddenly died of a heart attack while playing hockey. He experienced no warning symptoms and, with a healthy, active lifestyle, did not fit the profile of someone at risk. Too late to save him, Dupuy’s wife Victoria discovered that early coronary disease can be identified by simple CT scans. She recently launched a nonprofit organization, No More Broken Hearts, in San Jose …
The fact that childhood cancer is, thankfully, a rare disease belies the fact that it is the leading cause of disease-related death in U.S. children, age 1 to 19. The fact that it is a rare disease also belies the fact the number of people with a direct stake in expanding research into pediatric cancer is quite large and extends well beyond the small number of children with cancer and …
Nobody, it seems, is comfortable with death. In Haiti, where death and life are fluid concepts, where voodoo curses and ghosts are spoken of as fact rather than fiction, death is comfortably present. The dead are buried in mass graves throughout the country, victims of political crime, violence, malnourishment and infectious disease. There, life can be drained from a healthy person in a matter of hours for lack of clean …
Beloved and deeply respected Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino died on hospice in Brigham and Women’s Hospital recently. Menino developed advanced cancer of unknown primary (CUP) in the spring of this year, and after six months of chemotherapy, he elected to stop active treatment. Reportedly he was comfortable, and surrounded by friends and family at the time of his death. The press, the …
A new study from surgeons at UCLA found that laparoscopic cholecystectomies done at night for acute cholecystitis have a significantly higher rate of conversion to open than those done during daylight hours.
Nighttime cholecystectomies were converted 11 percent of the time vs. only 6 percent for daytime operations, p = 0.008, but there was no difference in the rates of complications or hospital lengths of stay.
Remember when we were trying not to panic about Ebola? Seems like that was only yesterday. Oh wait — it was only yesterday. But it already seems as if we are trying to remember that we were trying not to panic.
I listened to my favorite news radio station out of New York City while driving to the office recently. They address all of the major news stories in the first eight …
We sit, we listen, we attempt to focus and absorb what we are required to know. We learn how to give bad news, even using one another as makeshift “standardized” patients. How does one “standardize” a patient anyway? Who knows, who cares, time to cram for the endocrine exam.
But what happens when you stop pretending? When you wake up one morning …
