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Do All Patients Want Good Medical News?

It is a pleasure to give patients favorable medical news.  It’s an even greater pleasure to receive it.  Technology has replaced so much of our wholesome and human interactions.  Book stores are disappearing.  Handwritten thank you notes?  Nearly extinct.  The corner hardware store where the owner knows your family?  Today, we have Big Box warehouses where, if you hire a private investigator, you might be able to find a hiding salesman.  Need a salesman?  Hire Sherlock! The joy and relief that a patient and family feel when the physician says that all will be well has no technological equivalent.   We have all had anxiety about our own health or the well-being of those we care about.   When the physician enters the room to deliver news, there is fear and tension knowing that lives may change after just a few sentences are uttered. Fortunately, the vast majority of the news I deliver is just what patients and families want to hear. The biopsy result was benign. The

Test Your Knowledge of COVID-19

Many of us have sought distractions from the rising fears and frustrations of the pandemic. Why do you think it’s nearly impossible to buy a jigsaw puzzle now?  They are all on back order as the supply cannot meet the demand.  Board games are also more popular than ever.  Even I've competed in a few rounds of Boggle.  And binge-watching various television series has become a welcome oasis from the surrounding chaos. Jigsaw Puzzles - Endangered Species As a medical professional and an ordinary person, I am well aware of the health and economic horrors that the virus has wrought.   Yes, the upcoming vaccines represent a monumental scientific triumph, but there will be many dark months before they are widely available. In this posting, permit me to offer readers a lighter look at COVID-19 to provide a few minutes of deserved distraction. Here’s a COVID-19 quiz to test how current and accurate your knowledge is.   True or False Anthony Fauci, MD is obsessed with masks.   He

Thanksgiving Day 2020 - COVID-19 vs Us

This is not really a fair fight.  In one corner of the ring sits the novel coronavirus.  It's invisible and can attack without warning.  Moreover, when it lands a punch, the victim may not even feel its impact for several days.  It can fell even a highly trained athletic competitor.  And it has proven expertise in psychological warfare.  It's opponents - us - are scared that we might become tomorrow's victims.  The virus clearly understands and exploits the power of fear.   And with deepening pandemic fatigue, the virus gains a strategic advantage as we tire of practicing recommended public health mitigation efforts.   And in the opposite corner sits us, with a mask dangling loosely below our nostrils.  We thought that heading into the mall or to a friend's party would relax us before the competition.   After all, how much risk could there to be to have a quick drink at a coworker's house?   Or flying to another city to join with family at a Thanksgiving reunion?   

The 2020 Election was Rigged!

How often have we heard or read after a courtroom verdict, ‘we are going to appeal’, issued by confident lawyers who claim that their crusade for justice will yet be realized.  Indeed, I think many of us misunderstand the appeals process.  You cannot successfully aim to appeal a verdict simply because you reject the outcome.  There is no automatic judicial do over.   The losing party must offer convincing arguments to an appeals court that there were errors in the trial that rendered the proceedings unfair.  In other words, the error(s) must be material and not simply a harmless error.  Obviously, any trial or human endeavor will include mistakes that have no bearing on the ultimate outcome. For example, if a physician like me mistakenly records a patient’s height to be a half inch shorter than the true height, then the error is not consequential and won't affect the patient's care. 'I lost? I demand an appeal!' One of the many regrettable developments in the curren

How Honest Are You?

What is your threshold for speaking up?  Most of us claim to hover at an upper orbit of personal integrity.  But for many if not most of us, the boundary can be wavy.  We see and hear every day how political leaders use different sets of weights and measures depending upon political considerations.  Let me make this plain for readers with the following brief example. “When your guy does it, it’s corrupt and dishonest!” “When my guy does it, it’s completely ethical!” Test your own integrity as you peruse the following list. "Hmmm, what do I tell mom?" Is it a lie to tell your mom that her meat loaf was great when it conjured up visions of Ken-L Ration? If you catch your kid plagiarizing a term paper, do you contact the teacher? If a friend divulges that he is working under the table to avoid paying taxes, do you notify the IRS? If a coworker asks you to punch the time clock for him to hide a late start, do you simply refuse or also notify the manager? Have you vi

Election 2020 - Time to Change the Rules?

Four years ago, the country was shocked at the outcome of the 2016 World Series of Politics when the darkest of dark horses triumphed over the establishment.   In that contest, the New York Elites came up short against the New York Six Packs.   The final score of the decisive game was Six Packs 7 and the Elites 6 – a clear victory. The Elites and their supporters were incensed and bitter. “This is not fair!” they proclaimed.   “We got more hits than they did,” explained their team captain. “Who cares?” replied Captain Six Pack.    “The rules only count the runs, not the number of hits.” Over the next 4 years, every time Elitists referred to the prior lost contest, they always added, “We got more hits than they did.”   In fact, many of them began murmuring that the unfair rules should be changed such that the number of hits should now determine the winner.  Fairness, they grumbled, demanded a rules change. Let the Games Begin Anew! It's four years later and we are all spel

Election Day 2020 - First Step Toward Healing?

Two days from now is Election Day, which heretofore had been a demonstration of the majesty of American democracy.  Her Majesty has been dethroned.   Millions are wailing for a change in presidential leadership and millions of others demand that the current administration be granted another term. We are an angry people who seem willing to fight over everything and anything.   No issue is too trivial to demand someone’s cancellation.   Has the current administration caused these seemingly irreparable angry divisions or simply revealed them?  What is the pathway back to civil life? Those who support Vice President Joe Biden do so in part because they believe that his decency and empathy can serve as a national healing elixir.   I pray that this is the case, but I have deep doubts in his capacity to turn a lumbering ocean liner around with only a set of oars.   The healing, if it is ever to occur, will have to come from within.   And we have to want to be healed.   If an angry person