John F. McGeehan is an internal medicine physician.
The yearly arrival of Santa Claus was a wonderful ritual of my early childhood years and later as I became a parent and a grandparent. It was exciting and fun, and the production provided mystery and joy. The fact that millions of people look forward to giving without getting accolades for doing so symbolizes the best in human nature. We willingly give credit to a myth for bestowing on those …
I love medical ethics, and I am fortunate to be able to spend a substantial portion of my professional life working within this growing field. I recently demonstrated that when medical students engage in debates involving bioethics, it improves their tolerance for ambiguity. Medical school, and the years leading up to it, focus mostly on multiple-choice tests – with one correct answer. Licensing exams do the same. The young physician …
We all need hope. It is powerful and its absence is devastating. Hope allows us to move forward and to dream. Over decades of practice, I have found it to be the most powerful medication I can give a patient.
When we dispense hope, we must be as honest as we are with any treatment. False hope must be vigorously avoided. It is lying. In giving false hope, we might deprive …
I love stories, either told, written, or listened to. Songs tell stories, as does art. Blogs such as the rich content open so many doors for rich conversations. Telling stories is part of who I am. My father loved to tell them, as did my grandfather, whose name I took. They were called bull-sh*tters – and perhaps some refer to me that way at times. In medicine, I find storytelling …
My favorite patients were the older physicians who came to me as patients. I was humbled, grateful, and awed by each of them. For some reason, I had quite a few physicians as patients, and caring for this group is interesting. It was not until I got old enough and had issues needing a doctor for myself that I learned how hard it is to walk both sides of that …
I knew it was the end of the world. I was about ten years old and returning home just as it was becoming dark. The sky began to be shot full of incredible colors coming from one direction. They became larger and brighter. Having been raised in a strict Catholic household, I had been well prepared for the end of the world – it was here! I raced home at …
I spent many weeks as a patient in the hospital a few years ago and was encephalopathic during the entire stay. This means that I could speak and interact and, at times, especially to those who did not know me, appeared normal. I was told that I would give coherent lectures to the medical students who came to see me on rounds, only to not remember doing so an hour …
Student G.M is a 228. When she came to our school, she was a 31. When she went to college, she was a 1270.
Now we must make this number a caring, feeling person who has the empathy to impact the lives of patients for decades.
Makes sense, right? Wrong!
I played basketball in college — intramural. I was not bad, but I was not good. I liked to go to the gym …
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