Mike Stillman, MD

When doctors forget how to examine: the danger of lost clinical skills

Physician

June 20, 2025

An older woman with osteoporosis fell at home, developed back pain, then went to urgent care and was diagnosed with a “muscle strain.” During a follow-up visit in my office, she told me she’d had transient urinary incontinence after her fall, and on exam she had midline back tenderness, hip flexor weakness, and hyper-reflexive knee jerks. This woman had suffered a vertebral fracture, not a pulled muscle.

One of my patients …

Physicians take a stand against anti-LGBT laws: a call to action

Mike Stillman, MD

Policy

April 14, 2023

In the 1970s, my brother and I were raised as twins. He’s a year older than me, but we wore matching denim outfits, had thick side-parted hair, and worshiped The Beatles. Near identical though we were, only one of us was queer. And America was lying in wait.

When I was a toddler, the American Psychiatric Association de-pathologized homosexuality, but nearly 40 percent of its members fought that decision. Many of …

A physician’s response to Islamophobia

Mike Stillman, MD

Physician

July 28, 2016

I recently wrote an email to two Muslim colleagues apologizing for our nation’s political tenor. I shared with them my embarrassment over suggestions that our government bar Muslims from immigrating and monitor those who live here, my concern that a presidential candidate’s support congeals rather than erodes when he brays that “Islam hates us” and suggests that mosques be closed, and my dismay that so few …

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A physician’s response to Islamophobia