Blog

As my end of year post, here is the link to my story “She likes chocolate…” that was published in Pulse–voices from the heart of medicine, an online publication dedicated “to telling the personal story of health care…”   Happy Holidays to all,                        and here’sRead more

cardinal rule: let your patients talk first Even in my plastic surgery days, I would typically start my new patient encounter by inquiring as to why they were seeing me.  Typically they would clearly tell me what was going on with them, but sometimes I got quizzical looks, and sometimes their response was simply:  “myRead more

This may sound obvious, but for goals and treatments to be aligned, patients must have an honest understanding of both their medical condition and the potential benefits/burdens of proposed treatment options. I’m pointing this out, because in our desire to maintain ‘hope’, providers often couch bad news in niceties and ambiguities, which is not helpfulRead more

A common question It took me most of my fellowship year and well into my first job as a full time palliative medicine provider to come up with a succinct description of what I do.  To me, palliative care is “a helper service, working with patients (and their families) who have complicated conditions”.  I likeRead more