“Traveling makes one modest – you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. ”
-Gustave Flaubert
We have come to Kenya, expecting to work outside of our “comfort zones.”
Our patient has arrived from miles away, riding on the back of her husband’s bicycle. She has an enlarging, bleeding mass growing off of the side of her neck. There are no pathologists available, so we are uncertain what kind of tumor …
In Kenya, operating in our comfort zone
“If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”
-Eubie Blake
He leaned forward, energetically listening to my conversation with his daughter. There was more than one cancer treatment option. We reviewed everything and she asked what he could expect with either a major surgery or seven weeks of daily radiation treatments. Soon, both the father and daughter were peppering me with questions about …
The different types of frail to consider before surgery
I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
– Albert Schweitzer
The middle-aged Tanzanian woman lived many hours away and had traveled to the academic medical center in Moshi. She had now waited all day to see …
6 ENT physicians practicing in Tanzania, a country of 40 million people
No great artist ever sees things as they are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
-Oscar Wilde
The physical exam of the head and neck is both simple and challenging. Simple, in that even children are familiar with the shape of the face, the sheen of the eye, the curve of the ear, and the texture of the tongue. Challenging, because when complicated, interlacing structures malfunction, they send …
The physical exam of the head and neck is both simple and challenging
For everything, there is a season…
– Ecclesiastes
“Are you giving up on me?” My patient looks at me severely. “There must be other treatment options! Aren’t there some experimental drugs out there? I have beaten this cancer twice before. Are you saying that I can’t beat it again?”
No one can ever know with absolute certainty whether my patient’s newly recurrent cancer might miraculously disappear with one more treatment. His recurrence, however, has …
Discussing cancer treatment with the terminal patient
For myself I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else.
-Winston Churchill
Even before I met him, I could tell that his cancer was extensive. His problems had started several months before with a cough, a voice change, and some trouble swallowing. His primary doctor had not spotted anything but had kept an eye on him. Antibiotics and cough medicine had not helped. After …
Coping with frightening circumstances after a cancer diagnosis
We say we exchange words when we meet. What we exchange is souls.
-Minot J. Savage
It was Monday evening. The shelves in the electronics department overflowed with different styles, prices, and brands of headphones, all displayed in sealed plastic cases. I was in the mood to buy but was baffled by the array of options in front of me. This was not going to be as simple as I had thought.
A young …
When patients are willing to share their stories
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
– Albert Einstein
As medical students rotating through the wards, we spent a significant portion of each day ordering laboratory tests and then chasing down the results. We wanted to investigate our patients’ illnesses and, just as importantly, we wanted to be prepared for any question with which our professors might surprise us during Attending Rounds.
One day, as I was …
Before ordering a test, know what to do with the result
If you have to ask what jazz is, you will never know.
– Louis Armstrong
The stillness in the meeting room was electric.
First, one panelist addressed the audience members who have never experienced a malignancy. She described the unique and powerful bond that exists between cancer survivors. She described how the brush with mortality forces each survivor to renegotiate terms with Life itself. She reminded everyone that the cancer care system too often lets …
Cancer patients need compassion and balanced information
All the world is a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and entrances;
Each man in his time plays many parts.
-Shakespeare
“There’s a consult downstairs, Campbell. Go check it out and I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Sure, OK.” I was a third-year medical student fumbling through my first clinical rotations. The resident headed off to whatever he needed to accomplish and I trotted down the back …
Treating friends, and when worlds collide in the hospital
People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
– Albert Einstein
The surgical case is delayed for ten minutes and I am getting restless. I anticipate a very difficult dissection. The cancer has returned after extensive prior treatment with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. I have enlisted additional help to make certain that everything goes as smoothly as possible. …
Waiting is a part of surgery, and how a surgeon perceives time
The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.
-Helen Keller
The patient returned to my clinic several years after her original thyroid cancer surgery. “The cancer blood test never went completely back to zero,” she told me. “We knew there was cancer in there somewhere. Finally, the new ultrasound machine found it! I guess it is time for more surgery!”
I guess. In my patient’s situation, the latest high resolution diagnostic …
Treating cancer needs to be an individual patient decision
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
