As a parent and a doctor of nearly four decades, I’ve often found myself navigating the rugged terrain of a dual existence: the life of a devoted physician, and the life of a dedicated parent. I have not always succeeded in both arenas. My wife and I both bear the weight of our professions, drawn into the noble yet demanding world of medicine. Our missions and ambitions, while fulfilling, have …
In the quiet that follows a routine pediatric check-up, a single word, “vaccines,” can suddenly change the air. Where vaccines were once a simple part of childhood, they have become something parents scrutinize, debate, and sometimes outright resist. The shift is palpable, and it is increasingly showing up in clinic rooms every day.
As a medical student training in New York City, I am constantly struck by a paradox: We live …
There is an old parable about a farmer whose horse runs away.
The neighbors cry, “Such bad luck!”
The farmer only replies, “Maybe so, maybe not. We will see.”
The next day, the horse returns with two wild horses. “Such good fortune!” they cheer.
Again, the farmer answers, “Maybe so, maybe not. We will see.”
Soon after, the farmer’s son breaks his leg taming one of the horses. “Such misfortune!”
The farmer answers, “Maybe so, maybe …
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Amanda Heidemann, family physician and senior clinical content consultant for clinical effectiveness at Wolters Kluwer Health, discusses her article, “Gen Z’s DIY approach to health care.” Amanda explains how digital natives are …
In the quiet moments of illness, I witness love and loss unfold.
I usually place the beds of relatively sick patients closest to my workstation. While I can monitor all the patients, except for a few female beds behind curtains, this arrangement helps me keep a closer eye on those who are more ill, particularly those receiving chemotherapy.
Directly in front of my counter lies a 50-year-old gentleman recently diagnosed with primary …
An excerpt from Held Together: A Shared Memoir of Motherhood, Medicine, and Imperfect Love.
Scott and I held hands as the last few minutes of waiting expanded to rival the anticipation of the days that had already passed. Two weeks ago at this same medical center, our perinatologist had performed a chorionic villus sampling, the procedure to collect the fragment of placenta that would determine our course. I had been …
For over forty years, I worked as a general and vascular surgeon. For the last ten of those years, I was employed under an RVU-based compensation model. That period is when my dissatisfaction with medicine truly began. Complex, life-saving operations were reduced to “productivity units.” The pressure was relentless, the system unforgiving.
And unlike primary care physicians, surgeons do not have the option of concierge or direct-pay models. We are necessarily …
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Infectious disease physician Tyler B. Evans discusses his article “Meeting transgender patients where they are: a health care imperative.” Tyler, an infectious disease specialist and author of Pandemics, Poverty, and Politics: Decoding …
I’m not a financial advisor. But after 35 years in internal medicine and lipidology, I’ve realized that physicians are essentially wellth managers, stewards of human energy, rhythm, and resilience.
We help people diversify their time, protect their emotional capital, and build habits that generate compound interest in the form of years, vitality, and peace. In a way, our patients are portfolios: living, breathing balance sheets of choices and consequences.
It’s not money …
When I started practicing medicine more than thirty years ago, I believed the system was imperfect but noble. We worked hard, we cared deeply, and I thought that if we just kept doing our best, things would gradually improve. I trusted that technology, new policies, and better organization would eventually bring us closer to the ideals of medicine. Some of those changes helped. Many did not.
If I am honest, there …
“The Retrievals” is a podcast series hosted and written by Susan Burton and presented in cooperation with the New York Times that focuses on the failure of a Yale fertility clinic to address uncontrolled pain during procedures. As it turns out this was the result of a nurse surreptitiously replacing the pain medication fentanyl with saline to support her addiction. This apparently unfolded over the course of a year or …
Aging well is not solely a matter of luck or genes, in my experience as a gerontologist. The choices we make, the connections we nurture, and the support systems we build shape it. There is no better time than now to start—the latest research from 2024 and 2025 supports this.
Let us begin with a crucial insight: midlife is more important than we once imagined. In new studies, it has been …
She clutched her chest, gasping for words that would not come in English. The nurse leaned in, trying to decipher. Her son was not there to translate, and the phone interpreter line was not connected yet. I could see her distress worsening. Precious minutes slipped away before we finally realized she was describing classic heart attack symptoms. That patient survived, but the outcome could easily have been different. And in …
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When we began medical school, we had dreams and plans for what the next four years would look like. After all, we had the privilege of being siblings on the same medical training journey. The truth we have realized over these past years is that nothing truly prepares you for how medical school will change your time, priorities, and even your sense of self. Therefore, the decisions you make (or …
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Health care data strategist Lee Ann McWhorter discusses her article “Why health care reform must start with ending monopolies.” Lee Ann explains how monopolistic control by entities like GPOs, PBMs, EHR vendors, …
Prologue: the lost opportunity
Everyone knows Viagra as the “little blue pill” that revolutionized the bedroom. But what if its greatest potential was never about sex, but about saving lives?
A long-term study from Manchester followed men with both diabetes and a prior heart attack, about as high-risk a group as you can imagine. The results were astonishing: those who used sildenafil (Viagra) had a thirty-eight percent lower risk of another …
From daycare to college, the back-to-school season almost always correlates to one thing: a rise in respiratory illnesses. In late summer, when children are returning to their classrooms, outbreaks of illnesses like strep throat, influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) become more common, and schools can quickly become amplifiers of community transmission. These infections can spread rapidly through contact with surfaces where the virus or bacteria is present, like …
Were you the one who always held it together? The responsible one? The one who made sure everyone else was OK, sometimes at the cost of your own well-being?
For most eldest daughters, this role is inevitable. We don’t choose it. We are handed it, early and often, because we are so “capable.” We accept this role and excel at it. That’s what most eldest daughters do with whatever is handed …
Understanding the legal process in America is not easy, and I do not envy the attorneys who try to defend doctors in court. I do envy them for their protections. Lawyers, for the most part, as elected members of Congress, create our laws. Others, also for the most part lawyers, are selected to be U.S. Attorneys, and they enforce those laws. Lawyers called judges control our courtrooms. Almost all of …
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Surgeon Fateh Entabi discusses his article “A surgeon’s take on God, intelligence, and cosmic responsibility.” Fateh reflects on how the complexity of the human body inspired him to think more broadly about …
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