Casebook of a Community Internist
Blogs
- 11/7/2024
Walking in other people’s shoes: a thought experiment
Complexity is the reason the healthcare system is collapsing: patients are older, on more drugs, with high expectations, and not enough beds. - 10/29/2024
Young and old
I’d like to share with you the stories of two patients: the oldest and the youngest patients I have seen with a presentation of cardiac dysfunction. - 10/10/2024
Border zones: Liminal space in medicine and beyond
Overlap areas can prove to be some of the most dynamic. - 8/13/2024
Data: Musings on its importance in medicine
Four letters, two of them repeated. Not a big word. But one on which businesses are built and run by. And what is the most complicated business on the planet Earth? Medicine. - 8/6/2024
Pushing pills and curing ills
How long have physicians been pushing remedies for asymptomatic disease? - 7/22/2024
Context: an integral tool for educating patients
‘Well Bill, your master spark plug is getting rusty,’ I said to a 72-year-old retired mechanical engineer. - 6/19/2024
The retirement glidepath
Having had the privilege to re-write so many patients epilogues through his care, Dr. Hector Baillie reflects on the complicated task of creating his own. - 6/5/2024
The value of observation
You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to practice the powerful art of observation—after all, his literary inventor was a physician. - 5/27/2024
Gout
I got a bad strep throat, and antibiotics did the trick. Two weeks later, I awoke with a painful, erythematous, tender and swollen right forefoot. - 5/26/2024
Reflections from the ER: Aleysha’s story
One critical event debriefing in 35 years says a lot about the way we treat ourselves. We can do better. - 4/10/2024
Code Blue
I was sitting in the cafeteria, taking a break from hospital work. My mind was somewhere else, maybe my patient list, or a book, or thinking about dinner. In an instant, I knew exactly where I was, and how fast time passed as I ran down the corridor. - 3/27/2024
AM or PM? That is the question
There are two things certain in life: death and taxes. If our patients die, how important is it that we convey to next of kin an accurate cause of death?