A rabbi asks his students a question: “Where does God dwell?” One student answered, “Heaven.” Another answered, “We are only human; we cannot possibly know where God dwells.” “No,” the rabbi replied. “God dwells wherever we choose to let God in.” Might not the same question be asked about gratitude? Where does gratitude dwell? And the answer may be the same. Gratitude dwells wherever we choose to let gratitude into …

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This is a famous teaching in the Talmud, which in the Jewish faith is the commentary on the Hebrew Bible. Why would the holy book of the Jews make such a proclamation? It turns out this is about arrogance. It is about humility. The “best doctors” may also be the most prideful. Their arrogance may prevent them from realizing they need help. If they do realize it, their pridefulness may …

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When I was a teenager, I worked summer nights at the Funtown Amusement Park on the south side of Atlanta, Georgia. After work, as I drove home to the north side of Atlanta, I had to pass through “Cabbagetown.” In the early 1960s, during the days of segregation in the South, Cabbagetown was a shantytown neighborhood inhabited by tough, white folks who worked at the nearby Fulton Cotton Mills. On …

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Howera is a twenty-nine-year-old Ethiopian woman. She saw me in the neurology clinic for headaches. Two years previously, she had come to America to join her husband. Since her arrival, he beat her physically and abused her sexually. Being a stranger in a strange land and not speaking English, she suffered in silence. Finally, she could take it no longer. She ran away. For the past six months, she had …

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Don’t blame others for the burned-out road you are on: It is your own “Ass-Phalt.”

OK.

I know that sounds harsh. We, physicians and other clinicians suffer under the demands of irrelevant EMR guidelines, insensitive hospital administrators, and tyrannical medical–big pharma dictates. However, all these are “external” forces. They are not our “phault.” But what about the “internal” forces, forces that may be, in some way, our “phault” (or at least under …

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Here is a challenge: Review the schedule of patients you have seen today. As you recall each patient, ask yourself this question: Did I genuinely feel compassion towards my patient in that encounter?

I will be brutally honest with you (and myself). For me, on many days, that figure is maybe, at best, about 5 percent.

It’s tough. We are running 30 minutes late. Three irritated waiting room patients yearn for our …

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“How many lives did you save today, Dad?”

That is what my kids would ask me, rather sarcastically, many years ago, when they were young and when I arrived home late, missing our game of backyard basketball. They knew I was a neurologist. And, of course, they knew I didn’t exactly save lives since, as I had explained to them many times, my job consisted of giving folks lots of medications …

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