You get what you need
It was a sunny spring day in 1995, and my spirit was about to be crushed. He was our college health careers advisor, a doctor who didn’t go by ‘Doctor’. Rather, he was ‘Dean’, as in Dean of the Pre-Meds. His office was in one …
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clinical
#HealthcareHeroes Rock– But We Shouldn’t Need Them
It’s Christmas Eve 2021, and our COVID numbers are nasty: This is happening all over the country. It’s another surge, worse than the last few surges, and healthcare workers operating on the front lines are beyond tired. They’re exhausted, and my heart goes out to …
Reality and the Toilet Seat, Revisited
Originally published in April 2011, this practical post featuring a real patient encounter that took place in our clinic bathroom (and the scientific questions raised by that whole humorous situation) has been viewed many thousands of times.* In the ten years since, the evidence and …
Self Reflection, Self-Respect
“Mom, every time I look in the mirror, I see something different. Sometimes it’s good and I feel good about myself, but, sometimes it’s not.” It was well after dinner, and my nine-year-old daughter was perched on the kitchen counter nibbling on apple slices while …
Is It Pollen, Or Is It COVID?
It’s a gorgeous spring day in May. Trees are flowering, flowers are flowering, and I can’t go a day without antihistamines. I suffer from springtime pollen allergies and asthma, common things that can cause congestion and a cough. This has been anxiety-provoking for me at …
A Day in Clinic During a Pandemic
So, here I am in the office, which all but closed in mid-March. While we do have a skeleton crew on site seeing non-COVID-19 urgent care (like abrasions and UTI’s and joint pain), most our ongoing outpatient work is via telehealth. I’m going to talk …
On the COVID Wards
I was “activated” to duty on the inpatient COVID surge teams last week. I was worried, not only because it’s been a decade since I’ve been in charge of an inpatient service, but more so because SARS-CoV-2 is a new virus, and COVID19* is a …
Coronavirus: Making Primary Care Cool Again
You guys may not know this, but up until this pandemic, primary care has been the runt of the medical litter. Like, if the different branches of medicine were a high school sitcom, outpatient internal medicine would be the dorky intellectual kid who everyone knows …
Long Day, But It’s Okay
Here’s a true story from my yesterday, as in, New Year’s Eve 2019: I had wrapped up my clinic and was looking forward to maybe leaving the office earlier than usual. Most of our docs have been away for the holidays, and I’ve been one …
Time to Talk Lifestyle
Boston enjoyed the first snowstorm of the season this week, and I was lucky enough to have clinic scheduled smack dab at the height of it. We pretty much never cancel clinic for a snowstorm, though there have been blizzards when I literally couldn’t get …