In many ways, this woman was similar to other patients I have seen after a diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Her hair was growing back, and I immediately noticed that she was comfortable enough to not be wearing a wig or head covering for our Zoom visit. I keep my hair very short by choice and I find this …
There are many reasons why you should seek a second opinion. A second opinion can help you:
One study conducted by …
How to overcome the roadblocks to getting a medical second opinion
Amidst beeping monitors, I sat holding my mother’s frail hand in mine with tears rolling down my face and an eerie silence within my soul. I was trying to make sense of the last 24 hours.
My mother had migrated to Houston after an early retirement at 55 to spend time with her granddaughter and me. But life had other plans, as she was diagnosed with breast cancer a year into …
Culture and end-of-life caretaking
It sounds like a long time, but it really wasn’t. It was actually a very short period of time. My perspective of time changed with this number. I was close to my 9th birthday when my dad passed. He was only 48, and he had been diagnosed with lymphoma only a few years earlier. He passed after losing his battle to cancer. I remember saying my goodbyes in the hospital …
An excerpt from Love Is the Strongest Medicine: Notes from a Cancer Doctor on Connection, Creativity, and Compassion.
For nearly two decades, I’ve been telling my oncology patients, with only a little irony, Welcome to your new normal. There’s no getting around the fact that a cancer diagnosis—for you or someone you love—is life-changing. Sometimes those changes are temporary (even …
Love is the strongest medicine
There are endless life lessons to learn from people around us. Our friends’ opinions on what they think about a product, a certain cuisine, or how they view life not only gives us a glimpse of who they are, but also can impact our own views. As a doctor, it is always fascinating to me how two patients with the same oncologic diagnosis can have such different views of life: …
A physician colleague’s gratitude
We first met about two years ago when she came to see me in my clinic as a new patient. I glanced through her chart and reviewed her scans and pathology reports. She had one of the worst possible kinds of lung cancers, called small cell lung cancer, that had spread to both of her lungs. Her disease was incurable, but I could give her chemotherapy to improve her symptoms …
After all the years of medical training, I learned how to treat ugly on my own
Before COVID-19, I left the practice of medicine for what would turn out to become an entire year. While away, I found a new way of seeing our hearts and bodies as humans in the medical profession, allowing me to return.
Here are five lessons I learned in the hope they might help others.
1. Perfectionism doesn’t make you perfect
If perfectionism isn’t an unwritten rule in our profession, it’s, at minimum, a …
What I learned from stepping away from medicine for a year
Being an internist, the day is filled with problem-solving. The problems are often not straightforward and require thinking, rethinking, reevaluating, and reading up and researching before the problem can be solved. However, when a sixth sense, an intuition kicks in that warns us that something needs to be addressed urgently even when we cannot specify or articulate why.
Once I had a patient come in for shortness of breath that is …
The adaptive unconscious, the physician, and AI
It was only my first week in the hospital as a third-year medical student when we met. I entered your room early Tuesday morning. Only knowing your chief concern, I knocked on your door and entered the room. You didn’t complain when I awakened you. You didn’t complain when I asked many questions about a story you had already relayed multiple times to others. You didn’t complain when …
The long debate about rationality and conformity in both medicine and religion has been intense on many levels. Some people claim science requires certainty, validity, and reliability; others believe faith and optimism are essential for scientific advancement. Some reasons for this argument might include the enormous prosecution of scientists Read more…
Where is the line between faith and medicine?
As an oncologist, perhaps the hardest part I play is as witness. I am there to give a diagnosis that, more often than not, will alter someone’s life forever. For some, I see resignation—a sense that they’ve known something was wrong and that it’s what they thought they had. For others, I see an almost …
As an oncologist, this is the hardest role I play
Invisible and unassuming, the radioactive spider slowly descends from the ceiling, and before he knows it, Peter Parker’s life has changed forever. With that one bite, he is transformed from a normal man into a reluctant superhero. Only, that infamous spider is COVID-19, and Peter Parker is a health care worker during these troubled times.
It may surprise you to know that many of us in health care are uncomfortable being …
Health care workers in the time of COVID: reluctant superheroes?
Many people looking in on the world of research have perceptions of brilliant minds at work, rapidly putting forth groundbreaking ideas. While they’re not entirely wrong, I discovered that this arena of fascinating new discoveries is not always so rapid and not glamorous at all.
As a clinical trials research associate, I learned that research is hard. I found that testing and implementing theories and postulations takes time and dedication. I …
The truth about research: Lessons learned by an aspiring physician-researcher
An excerpt from Of Plagues and Vampires: Believable Myths and Unbelievable Facts from Medical Practice.
The concept of a vampire predates Bram Stoker’s tales of Count Dracula – probably by several centuries. But did vampires ever really exist?
In 1819, 80 years before the publication of Dracula, John …
About three months ago, something awful happened. The oncology nurse practitioner (NP) whom I trained for the past two years in my subspecialty decided to seek employment elsewhere in order to have a more flexible work schedule.
My team and I lamented we had a going-away dinner to say thank you for her work. And for the next three months, I trudged through my days in a busy oncology clinic, seeing …
Should nurse practitioners complete medical residencies?
What seems like a tidal wave of pages washes over you. Drowning in a torrential sea of order clarification, bowel regimens, and vital sign deviations — you struggle to stay afloat. Medical school did not prepare you for this. Patients and nurses are calling you, “doctor,” you wish to return to that minimal responsibility role as a medical student.
Welcome to your first on-call weekend.
These first few days, weeks, and months …
The intern who knows everything
At kitchen tables everywhere, ordinary Americans have been grappling with the arcane language of deductibles and co-pays as they’ve struggled to select a health insurance plan during open enrollment season.
Unfortunately, critical information that could literally spell the difference between life and death is conspicuously absent from the glossy brochures and eye-catching websites.
Which plan will arrange a consultation with top-tier oncologists if I’m diagnosed with a complex …
The hidden benefits of your health insurance plan can save your life
I heard about you a few times before I ever met you in person. It was my first day on the palliative care service — a week that felt like a relaxing break from the sixteen-hour days I was used to on surgery. Many people don’t know what palliative care is. But I suspect these days if you are still living that you know it well.
I first heard of you …
A letter to a cancer patient in palliative care
“Words Kill” is a brilliant song about the perils of texting and driving. Spread the message.
Courtesy of The Fever Breakers, a band made up of hospital employees. Their socially conscious songs are crafted in the basement of the hospital using a piano used for cancer patient music therapy and subsequently recorded in a studio.
A brilliant song about the perils of texting and driving
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