Jun 29, 2019 | Doctoring, Health Care, Patients
From the moment I started medical school and for years thereafter, my friends called about bladder infections, birth control, and the occasional poison oak or ivy. As we moved into our forties, those calls gave way to ones about aging parents. Now in my fifties, my...
Jan 19, 2016 | Doctoring, Patients, Writing
This month I focus exclusively on writings by and about the writer-neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi, who died last year at age 37. I didn’t know him, and I only met his wife briefly years ago. So this isn’t personal or coyly promotional. It’s just admiration and awe for a...
Mar 6, 2013 | Doctoring, News and Updates
When you hear the same comment from two very different places/people in a short space of time, you need to take it seriously. First, a friend/colleague at Brown said she loved the book, couldn’t put it down, but felt it didn’t paint a very optimistic...
Jan 14, 2013 | Public Medical Communication, Writing
Public Medical Communication is effective, interactive, and engaging communication between health professionals and the public. It can take many forms from tweets to op-ed articles to blogs to essays in medical journals. In an era that the internet guru Clay Shirky...
Dec 27, 2012 | Doctoring, Public Medical Communication, Writing
→ Medical students expelled. → Residents under investigation by state Medical Boards. → Practicing physicians in trouble with their Chairs, colleagues, communities. → Hurt and angry patients and families. Why? Because patient stories, written by medical students or...
