Category: Medicine

  • Why?

    What is your why? Following a recent conference on academic hospitalist medicine, I have spent a lot of time these past few weeks with learners – medical students, residents, pre-med college students – as well as community researchers who have survived various forms of gun violence. It’s no secret to anyone that I was quite…

  • Counterpoint: Donald Trump got elected and I know exactly what to think

    This is written as a public response to Jonathan Imbody, VP of Government Relations for CMDA, who recently wrote an opinion piece for a CMDA blog titled “Donald Trump got elected and now I don’t know what to think.”  As he introduces: If that statement describes how you feel, you are a member of a large group…

  • Scum of the World

    I could hear the cussing from inside the room and noted the awkward glances of nearby nurses and staff who turned to look and gawk.  Even though I only sat a few feet outside the door, I ignored the increasingly loud litany of expletives and deliberately focused on the screen in front of me.  He was my patient and I was doing my…

  • Failing Faithfully: Created, Fallen, and Waiting

    Failing Faithfully: Created, Fallen, and Waiting

    [This is an advance post in a series from the ESN blog.  You can find the first part here or here.] In the first post of this series, I was ruminating about a patient who had a rapid decline in health and social circumstances, culminating in a recent scan that showed the possibility of cancer even while…

  • Pediatrician to Parent to the Passion

    I stopped and put my fork down on the plate.  There was still food on it, but an emotional force had interrupted my appetite.  My wife and I had been sitting at the dining table, chatting idly about preparations for our child, now nearly 34 weeks old and still in the womb. 34 weeks.  In the mere act…

  • Suffering on Mission

    I Peter 4:12-19 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. Back in March I traveled overseas to…