My Blog
Medical Misnomers
English is a funny language, an amalgam of many other languages, and always in evolution. Daily, we use words that make no sense, without even noticing it. Most of these misnomers made sense originally, and the words have hung on, even after our knowledge, or the...
Things We Believe That Probably Aren’t True
Mark Twain said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “ Let’s have a romp through some beliefs that have NO science to back them up. Burping babies- If you’ve ever been a parent or a babysitter,...
TV Medicine
Clearly, four years of college, four years of medical school and three years of pediatric residency wasn’t a complete medical education. There are so many things I didn’t know until I started watching action-packed TV shows. Especially the ones with SWAT teams,...
Salamanders
The big plastic bag of potting soil had been lying on the coiled garden hose in the backyard for several weeks, leftover from fall planting. Annoyed at the eyesore of my own making, I heaved it up to move it inside. To my surprise, snuggled in between the green loops...
The Nativity
I carefully opened the worn, thin cardboard box, lifting the clumps of excelsior out, to reveal the crumpled tissue paper. I gently unwrapped the tiny porcelain figures lovingly nestled in the tissue, arranging them just so. Mary, Joseph, the baby, the angel, the...
Sun Dogs
It was late one fall afternoon, and I was frustrated, disgusted and ready to throw my shotgun down. My sporting clays lesson had gone poorly, and I felt like I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. Cody, my instructor, stood patiently behind me while I took a deep...
Christmas in a Children’s Hospital
In December, the questions parents ask in the hospital are different. Instead of “Will my child be OK?”, we pediatric hospitalists hear: “We have plane tickets to go skiing for Christmas. Will he be well by then?” “She’ll be home for Christmas, right? We’ve never been...
Halloween
It is Halloween 1959, or thereabouts. The neighborhood of tidy red brick houses under the tall pine trees is like many that were quickly thrown up after WWII when the GIs came home, got married, and started families. We, my older brother Bob, and I, have already raked...
Vacation in a Tuberculosis Sanitarium
Imagine my surprise when we arrived, were led to our room, and discovered that our two-room suite had originally been the doctor’s office and exam room for the TB sanitarium!
On Call with a Non-Doctor Husband
I’d already been in practice for several years when I married John. I had had years of training in night call, during med school, internship, residency, and private practice. He, poor guy, had not. So, it was a new world to him. It was in the days before call centers...