Patients and caregivers writing on KevinMD about the experience of illness and the health care system from the other side of the exam table: navigating care, the doctor-patient relationship, being heard, and what patients want physicians to understand. Physicians who have become patients write here too. For the record of what pain patients and physicians have said to each other about opioids and chronic pain since 2007, with patient authors cited at the same weight as physicians, see Opioids: what physicians and pain patients say, in their own words. For what patients, families, and physicians have said about dying, hospice, and the decisions families face at the end of life, see End of life: what physicians say, in their own words. For what women and the physicians who treat them have said about pregnancy, menopause, and the conditions dismissed for years, see Women's health: what physicians say, in their own words. For what physicians have said about consent, honesty, and who decides, see Medical ethics: what physicians say, in their own words.
“Hey, doc, you’re killing me.” Or, more specifically, us.
A recent report from researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine points to medical errors as the third leading cause of death in this country. Despite the many safeguards put in place by the government, hospitals, and doctors, themselves, more than 250,000 people a year in the U.S. die from hospital-acquired infections, wrong-site surgeries, medication mistakes and a host of …
One weekend about nine-and-a-half years ago, I flew from Minneapolis, where I live, to Atlanta for a publishing conference. A colleague and I were to make a presentation to the vice-president of one of our major customers.
For a couple of weeks, I’d been plagued by a sore throat, but I’d written it off as allergies or a virus. When I tried to begin the presentation, though, all that came out …
I slipped and fell. My hip fractured, surgery would make it better. But it didn’t. My body was too weak to fight. I couldn’t cough and deep breathe; I stayed in bed. I had nausea and vomiting. I couldn’t breathe. I became weaker and weaker, until my family noticed. The medics rushed me into the ER. My blood pressure was 62/34. For how long? The ER nurses and doctors tried …
“Do you need help getting undressed?” Jon asks from the doorway of our bedroom, one hand holding his BlackBerry, the other tucked into the front pocket of his baggy jeans. His head is slightly tilted, his eyebrows arched, highlighting his forehead wrinkles.
His phone vibrates, drawing his eyes from me to the incoming message. I wait.
Jon reads, ponders and then looks up, half-absorbed in what he’s just read, and registers that …
This piece is based on personal experience and on the thousands of emails I’ve received from those who live day-to-day with chronic illness (which includes chronic pain).
1. Email. I know the joy of hearing the actual voice of a loved one. That said, email is the principal way I communicate with people.
It’s hard for me to talk on the phone. It saps my energy quickly, partly because of the need for …
Some say privacy is an illusion. I hope that isn’t true, but I do know that our medical records are not safe. Why should you care? Because our medical records contain our social security numbers, health insurance information, our home addresses, phone numbers, emergency contacts and their phone numbers, our email addresses, possibly our driver’s license numbers, and likely credit card payment information. Ever paid your co-pay with a credit card?
I would have graduated from medical school this year. That’s right. Just like you, I’d be getting ready to move to another city and take up residence at an academic medical center to begin my clinical training. Things don’t always work out the way we planned: like Lenny and George in Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men. Sometimes, the best-laid plans have a way of going awry no matter how carefully we prepare them.
Five months in the NICU made the daily 20-mile drive to see our son at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle quite tiresome. He was born prematurely at 22 weeks and 6 days of gestation, and we felt uprooted, wondering if we would ever get him home. Then we met some Alaskans in the waiting room, who told us stories about being hustled on to air ambulances when pre-term labor was …
As a registered nurse and health care writer and editor for more than 25 years, I routinely wrote or assigned stories to other writers about the health of LGBT individuals. I valued these stories not only because I was a nurse, but also because I thought the subject was worthy of coverage. I believed our nurse readers should be aware of the specific health needs of their LGBT patients.
I need you to be healthy. When I come to you for help, I need your “A” game. I need you sleep enough. Eat healthy food. Not too much. Mostly vegetables. I need you to exercise regularly and take time to take care of your own physical, emotional and spiritual needs. I need to you use the bathroom when you need to. I need you to stop and take …
On September 14, 2006, I was in the midst of a 218-consecutive-day hospitalization. What began as a scheduled C-section that April, resulted in a massive infection that nearly killed me. By Autumn, I was receiving physical therapy in the large hospital gym when I was raced back up to my room for my trach to be suctioned. This was not an uncommon occurrence. I was used to the process, and …
I am an ENT surgeon, a friend of the author, the patient, and their daughter, whose intervention saved his life. This is a smart, loving family caught in a terrible vortex of terrible medical care until they pulled themselves out, and a story that physicians must read, as we struggle to reinstate humanity and humility into our noble profession. Here is Paul’s tale, as told by his wife.
38 states currently have an apology act. This means that if doctors feel they owe a patient an apology, they may provide one without any ramifications, if future legal actions are taken by the patient/patient’s family.
In 2006, I spent 218 days in the hospital after the healthy birth of my daughter. My chronic autoimmune disease, scleroderma, masked certain signs of preeclampsia, which went undiagnosed. This led to a massive infection …
Three years ago I spent the entire month of September by my daughter’s side in her hospital room. From Ana’s window, we watched summer fade into fall as we waited, day after day, for her to be discharged, which finally happened in early October.
During her forty days in the hospital, Ana was diagnosed with an obscure, slow-growing cancer called inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor. The tumor, roughly the size of a cantaloupe, …
Conceivably one of the areas of life most affected by neurogenic bladder is sexual intimacy. When I was first diagnosed, I was afraid to have sex. Because I was new to using a catheter, I was sore …
Many of us who suffer from chronic pain and illness are on medications that carry side effects that, in some cases, can be as difficult to cope with as our initial health problems. I’ve recently started a medication that I’m scheduled to be on for five years. I’m taking it because it significantly reduces the risk of a recurrence of my recent bout with breast cancer.
We need to talk. I know I walk into your office fearing the worst of you, and I suspect that you may have some hesitation about some of your patients. (Need I say, “frequent flyers?”)
We both have baggage. You have your patient horror stories. I — as a female patient with fibromyalgia and mental health issues — have mine.
The woman in ill fitting snow pants and parka, as if there is such a thing as well-fitting snow pants and parka, clumps of blonde stuck-together hair poking out of her non-hipster cap, you know exactly what she looks like, stares at me from the sagging mid-century couch across the alcove in the café where I have set up my laptop, a scone, a huge cup of expensive coffee described …
I was attending a 50th birthday party for a friend of mine, when I struck up a conversation with someone I had never met. The conversation, of course, was with a woman who seemed genuinely interested in my quest to make air travel safer for those with food allergies. I told her how my family often receives dirty looks from other passengers when we pre-board a plane to wipe down …
