Memories, Medicine & Moods
Blogs
- 9/28/2022
My sister: A New Year’s meditation
At this time of year, during the High Holidays, we are encouraged to think about “Tikkun Olam,” the healing of the world. - 9/7/2022
Report from Burnoutville: Flexibility creates families out of teams
As I inch towards a peri-retirement, I am grateful for the long-standing flexibility my on-call group has used for many years—to the benefit of practitioners at many different stages in their careers. - 8/24/2022
Report from Burnoutville: To quit or not to quit?
In an exhausting time for doctors, the question of whether it's time to consider retiring can't help but arise. But what questions do docs need to consider before actually throwing in the towel? - 7/21/2022
Story time for patients who won't listen
My Family Medicine OB group has a group chat where we discuss what we euphemistically call “Patients of Note” i.e. the patients who are giving us nightmares. - 7/6/2022
Catch a falling baby
Beauty in this world needs protecting. Dr. Perle Feldman discusses a moment in obstetrics where, in an instant, she was able to provide that protection. - 6/3/2022
Hospital food: the good, the bad and the ugly
As a medical student, the cafeteria lunches and dinners outside the white table-clothed private staff dining room was usually some horrible variation of mystery meat in cream sauce. - 5/12/2022
Four decades of collaboration: My life with nurses
“Baby K is looking a little floppy.” I told them. An hour later when sepsis had been diagnosed, I received the accolades. “Good pick-up, Perle,” said the chief, approvingly. Nurse Deanna smiled. She’d given me this opportunity to shine and from that moment on the nurses in the NICU seemed to treat me differently. They knew I would listen. - 5/2/2022
Bill 96: If you don’t want to do something, one reason is as good as another
The image of two fluent Punjabi speakers being forced to communicate in French because of government fiat strikes me as completely absurd, cruel and ultimately dangerous. In many ways this follows a pattern of the Legault government’s strategy. - 4/6/2022
Calamity ware: What's in a plate?
“Could he be having a posterior MI?” I thought to myself. “But he just had an echo and a stress MIBI that was all normal, how could this be?” I persuaded myself that I was wrong. After all, he did have bad reflux and the occasional panic attack. I got up and got him some expired, four-year-old Maalox, and another PPI. “Do you feel better?” I asked him. - 2/25/2022
The Bubbie business
By the time my grandkids' parents came to pick them up, we were exhausted but happy and satisfied. “What good grandparents you are!” you might be thinking, but you see I have my own agenda. - 1/24/2022
War stories: O, do not wish one more!
The problem with working during COVID is these are not abstract ideas: bed closures, people missing vital surgeries and treatments, refugees pouring across the border, escaping exploitation and mistreatment. These are people with names, and faces, beating hearts, bellies that move under my examining hand, tears and frightened smiles. - 1/10/2022
Chocolate cake: a medical metaphor
If you think of medicine as a large iced chocolate layer cake, you can think of the icing as the signs and symptoms of illness and the names of all the diagnoses. The top layer of the cake is common disease.