When I walk into an exam room and my patient is black, do I treat him differently than if he were white? I may say “no”, but the data say “yes.” When I walk into an exam room and I see a patient who has no health insurance, do I treat her differently from a patient...
We sit in a conference room on red swivel chairs, quiet, motionless, eyes closed. We turn off our senses just like we turn down the house lights, switch off the television, and close the garage door at the end of the day. We become numb and detached from our bodies....
What’s in an itch? Walking out of a patient’s room, I develop an itch. An itch around my neck, on my forehead, and in the middle of my back. I cannot help but scratch and feel some relief. My patient, a thin woman in her 50s, who works in a day care center, has a...
This week, I was going to write my usual health column, but then I decided to take a “snow day.” Yet, soon, I realized that the snow and ice we have experienced was not hindering the path from my bedroom to the computer room, nor was the snow preventing...
Last week, when my beloved New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, barely any friends shared my joy. Even my wife, a New York Giants fan, retorted with “The Patriots are a bunch of cheaters,” referring not so subtly to the deflated football scandal. “They scored 45...
