For over twenty years, I’ve had a recurring nightmare: I’m back in medical training, and my patient is crashing. To save them, I must enter my medical orders into the electronic health record (EHR). The only problem is, there are no open computers. I could give a verbal order in a real-life emergency, but those aren’t the rules in this nightmare world. I go from computer to computer, begging for …
According to the National Institutes of Health, the majority of individuals experience several traumatic events in their lifetimes, but do they all develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? If you question the general populace or the media, they would indicate that PTSD is extremely common. Although it varies by sub-population, for the general populace, 13 and above, the rate of diagnosed PTSD is 4 percent to 8 percent. It is highest …
Recently, I encountered a stark reminder of the challenges facing our mental health care system. A 16-year-old Black boy came to us at Boston Community Pediatrics (BCP) in a state of crisis, expressing suicidal thoughts and a deep sense of fear. As part of our integrated behavioral health model, my mental health colleague and I immediately recognized the urgency of his situation. We arranged for an Uber to transport him …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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: …
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 …
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 …
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).
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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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, …
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 …
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. …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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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