Conditions

Why rethinking cancer risk is critical to addressing rising cancer rates in young adults

Conditions
November 15, 2024

I recently encountered a new patient, a seemingly healthy 25-year-old man who had just graduated from college and was working his first job. He was not a tobacco user and had no medical diagnoses, but shoulder and abdominal pain brought him to Mass General Brigham. After a series of tests, the diagnosis was clear: stage IV lung cancer.

As a lung cancer oncologist who has treated patients for 20 years, I’ve …

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The dangerous impact of cognitive distortions on grieving

Conditions
November 15, 2024

In the weeks after her mother died, Stacy’s mind was filled with thoughts about things she believed she’d done wrong and ways she’d let her mother down. “I shouldn’t have gotten so impatient with her”; “I should have been kinder, should have spent more time with her.” She was even tormented by the inaccurate belief that she had caused her mother’s death by failing to “try harder to get her …

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Toxic waste disaster: How Hughes Aircraft poisoned Tucson’s environment and people

Conditions
November 14, 2024

An excerpt from Disabled Ecologies.

The multicolored poisonous waste disposed of by Hughes Aircraft Company was never just TCE, the most infamous ingredient. It was always a toxic soup: dozens of volatile organic compounds and heavy metals, contaminants with names like dichloroethylene, chromium, cadmium, and benzene. The chemicals were used in the early 1950s in the manufacture and cleaning of missiles that would travel thousands of miles overseas to …

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Restoring compassionate pain care: a call to action

Conditions
November 14, 2024

As a patient advocate, I have witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of policies leading to untreated and undertreated pain. As a mother who has lost a child to drug poisoning, I have also witnessed how drug policy is driving an increasingly lethal street drug supply. With overdose deaths rising, well-intentioned policies have left many suffering without the medications they need for quality of life. Tragically, some patients, overwhelmed by unrelenting …

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The real cause of the opioid crisis isn’t what you think

Conditions
November 13, 2024

For years, the U.S. public has been hearing that prescription opioid pain relievers are always and forever a bad thing—and that doctors and big pharma companies are supposedly responsible for an epidemic of addiction and drug overdose-related deaths. However, these assertions are outright lies. Both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Veterans Administration know it.

The recent national opioid settlement is as bogus as a three-dollar bill—and …

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Voices for the voiceless: lives lost in translation

Conditions
November 10, 2024

Too often, language and cultural barriers prevent diverse immigrant patients from receiving the quality treatment they deserve. Hospitals frequently fail to provide basic translation services that are efficient and culturally complementary for immigrant patients or fail to train health care professionals on how to incorporate these services into treatments. This lack of proper care for immigrant patients is a discriminatory, biomedical issue that robs them of their voice and rights.

Imagine: …

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A fight against all odds: the story of a breast cancer fighter who became my inspiration, strength, and light

Conditions
November 9, 2024

I lost an inspiration—my relative (Dr. PBA), a dedicated and talented doctor, who succumbed after a long and courageous battle with metastatic breast cancer and brain metastasis. She was the driving force behind my passion for oncology research, especially in breast cancer. Her journey began with a late and missed diagnosis, leading her across borders in search of evidence-based care, from one health care provider to another, and through relentless …

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When a physician gets a rare disease diagnosis

Conditions
November 9, 2024

As an OB/GYN for the past 22 years, I have loved delivering babies, performing surgeries, and having long-term relationships with my patients. Now, I am on the other side of things, as a patient myself. I was diagnosed with adult polyglucosan body disease (APBD) in April of 2023 at the age of 59.

APBD is an ultra-rare, neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a deficiency of glycogen-branching enzyme. The result: an accumulation of …

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Gender-based violence and the life-changing power of reconstructive surgery for survivors

Conditions
November 8, 2024

This year, the world was shocked by the tragic death of 33-year-old Rebecca Cheptegei, who had just completed the women’s marathon at the Olympics in Paris. She succumbed to her injuries in a Kenyan hospital after her partner’s brutal attack left 80 percent of her body burned. This horrific incident is not isolated; it is part of a disturbing global pattern of gender-based violence (GBV).

According to the World Bank, …

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The unexpected truth about restless legs syndrome treatments

Conditions
November 7, 2024

For decades, patients with restless legs syndrome (RLS) have been prescribed medications that, unbeknownst to them, were making their symptoms worse. Many doctors who have been prescribing these drugs are unaware that these treatments—primarily ropinirole and pramipexole—are exacerbating the condition. Thankfully, this is about to change.

In September, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) released new clinical practice guidelines that recommend against these drugs (marketed as Requip and Mirapex, respectively) …

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Bridging worlds through the language of neurodiversity

Conditions
November 7, 2024

I spend most of my working hours trying to unlock superpowers. When I chose to pursue medicine—pediatrics, and later, developmental behavioral pediatrics—I didn’t realize I would be learning to decode languages. These languages aren’t always spoken, yet over time, I’ve developed a sharp instinct for reading them. Every time I step into an exam room, my task is to slowly unravel how a child sees the world, communicates with it, …

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How abortion laws turned our family vacation into a life-or-death dilemma

Conditions
November 5, 2024

This past summer, we planned a family vacation with our two adult daughters and their significant others to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The trip was scheduled for July 6. After we planned our vacation, our older daughter announced her pregnancy, and to our surprise and delight, she was expecting twins! She consulted with her OB/GYN and was permitted to go on the trip under the condition that she …

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When high achievers and isolated adults share a common enemy: social anxiety

Conditions
November 2, 2024

Karen, age 46, mother of two, is a world-renowned physician who has headed numerous clinical trials and has saved many lives. She suffered from public speaking anxiety disorder. Mike, age 26, a college graduate, spends most of his life in his room. He doesn’t work, is socially paralyzed, and spends over 100 hours a week with various technology dependencies. His parents walk on “eggshells” for fear of triggering his anger. …

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Why physicians need to become more educated about alternative pain treatments

Conditions
November 1, 2024

All indications are that pain care in the United States is in crisis. There is an epidemic of prescription opioid-fueled opioid addiction and overdoses (over a million dead and millions more addicted) as well as an epidemic of chronic pain. Estimates of the prevalence of pain indicate that from 21 percent (2021 National Health Interview Survey) to 56 percent (2021 Harris Poll) of Americans have chronic pain, and about 7 …

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A terminal disease intercepted by modern medicine

Conditions
October 29, 2024

I have been a physician for over forty years, with an office practice and providing geriatric house calls in our community. Now, I am also a caregiver.

My partner, Robin, was diagnosed with a rare malignancy in November 2022, known as anaplastic thyroid cancer. She was given six months to live.

Surgery to remove what they could took 9 1/2 hours, and seven weeks of subsequent radiation and chemotherapy helped slow it …

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Living with type 1 diabetes: my journey through misconceptions, stigma and resilience

Conditions
October 28, 2024

I was only a child when my life took a sharp turn. At around five or six years old, I started noticing odd changes in my body that I didn’t understand. The day I landed in the hospital was the day the word “diabetes” entered my life, even though I didn’t know what it meant.

I overheard my father telling my mother about my diagnosis, but all I could follow was …

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Work-life balance in health care: Is it a need or a necessity?

Conditions
October 27, 2024

As health care professionals, have you ever stopped and asked yourself, “How am I doing?”

A humble doctor once asked my team, “How are you doing on a personal level?” That question stopped me in my tracks. None of us knew how to answer. Were we okay? Were we coping? Maybe we were, but maybe we weren’t. The truth was, we didn’t know. His question echoed in my mind for days, …

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5 questions in mental health counseling – and life

Conditions
October 26, 2024

Dedicated to my friend and colleague Pat Irving to whom I first told the story.

I’m 80 years old and I’ve been writing for over 60 years—first in systems engineering, later in advanced technology, and more recently in public health policy for the regulation of pain medicine. At this stage of my life, some of my writing is introspective, in an attempt to extract and share “lessons learned” with others. Thus, …

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The widow’s walk: a poignant tale of loss, love, and recovery

Conditions
October 25, 2024

A widow’s walk, also known as a widow’s watch or roof walk, is a railed rooftop platform often having an inner cupola or turret, frequently found on 19th-century North American coastal houses. The name is said to come from the wives of mariners, who would watch for their spouses’ return, often in vain, as the ocean took their lives, leaving the women widows. In other coastal communities, the platforms were …

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To avoid unwanted medical treatment: Choose a bulldog surrogate to fight for you

Conditions
October 25, 2024

“Health is a matter of choice, not a mystery of chance.”
—Aristotle

As an end-of-life (EOL) consultant, one aspect of my job is advance care planning, which involves helping people create an advance directive. An advance directive (AD) has two components. The living will portion lists the treatment options and choices you want or don’t want if you become incapacitated due to an accident or a medical crisis. In the second portion, …

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