I wanna live with the cinnamon girl I could be happy the rest of my life With my cinnamon girl. — Neil Young— You can’t make this stuff up, really… Joe (not his real name) is an old patient, been seein’ him since I started practice many years ago. Nice guy, but a little —…
Category: Medicine
General essays on the topic of medicine and the medical profession
The Call
Damn!, I hate these calls … Lying on my desk, clipped to a yellow manila binder, is a single sheet of paper. Its pleasant color format and sampled photomicrograph belie the gravity of its content: Adenocarcinoma, Gleason grade 9, involving 60% of the specimen. How do you deliver a death sentence? Your first impression of…
4. There Is a Solution
“There is a solution.” So starts a chapter of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous – the virtual Bible of recovery from alcoholism and the basis of all 12-step recovery programs. And it works – according to the testimony of millions of recovering alcoholics and addicts in the nearly 70 years since the inception of…
3. The Downward Spiral
If you take the opportunity to speak with those who have survived the ordeal of addiction and alcoholism and who are in recovery, you will find a wide range of stories and experiences. When we think about those who are alcoholics and addicts, they are typically viewed through the lens of late-stage affliction: homeless, disheveled,…