My blog represents my personal experiences and perspectives. This includes many anecdotes from my medical practice. I have been scrupulous to anonymize these anecdotes and to avoid ever belittling or making fun of patients. (I often make fun of and criticize myself, my colleagues, and the institutions where I have worked.)
In college you learn to be a college student. In medical school, you learn to be a medical student. In residency, you learn to be a resident.
In practice, if you let them, patients will teach you to be a doctor.
No two Maine winter storms are identical. They each have their unique personality: gradual or abrupt onset, temperature, kind of snow, duration, wind, with or without ‘frozen mix’ or other forms of precipitation. Here is the story of one storm from earlier this winter.
If you are not already acquainted with B. Kliban and his cats, perhaps this will convince you should be.
Or this...
Or this:
LL Bean recently announced the end of their famous and generous unlimited free-return policy, which guaranteed a lifetime free replacement. It was inevitable, and I told them so.
a total stranger one black day
(by edward estlin (e e ) cummings)
a total stranger one black day
knocked living the hell out of me--
who found forgiveness hard because
my(as it happened)self he was
-but now that fiend and i are such
immortal friends the other's each.
The language of medicine is highly evolved and complex and allows clear, detailed, specific and unambiguous descriptions. Except when it’s not.
"Without order nothing can exist - without chaos nothing can evolve."
(Unknown)
An important part of medical care is the sharing of information.
It has become fashionable to assess the ‘value’ of medical care with a financial metric: Is this test cost effective? Does that intervention save money?