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How to Fix the Premed Curriculum - Another Try
Posted Aug 28, 2019 at Medical Keepers
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Notes on Morphine by F.W. Peabody
Notes on the Effects of Morphine For full essay Download Notes on the Effects of Morphine By Francis W. Peabody From The Caring Physician The Life of Dr. Francis W. Peabody By Oglesby Paul The following unpublished essay is “[a]n example of how FWP, the scientist/physician, used his terminal illness... Continue reading
Posted Mar 20, 2019 at Keepers
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My Three Livers: how transplants gave me my life back
Full Text: Download My Three Livers Continue reading
Posted Mar 8, 2019 at Keepers
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A Mentor's Legacy
Here is the PDF of A Mentor's Legacy by Ranjana Srivastava: Download Srivastava Mentors NEJM Continue reading
Posted Mar 7, 2019 at Medical Keepers
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Are You Well Controlled?
For full article, please: Continue reading
Posted Nov 25, 2018 at Keepers
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Doctor Sahib
Link for Miranda-Med.blogspot.com Download Dr. Sahib (NEJM Perspective essay, 11.22.18) Continue reading
Posted Nov 22, 2018 at Keepers
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How to Fix the Premed Curriculum - Lewis Thomas 1978
Lewis Thomas, New England Journal of Medicine, May 25, 1978 This is a classic article by Lewis Thomas. Sadly, little has changed in the past 40 years! If interested, ou can: Download L. Thomas Pre-medical Curriculum Continue reading
Posted Jun 29, 2018 at Medical Keepers
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Puddldoc wrote: Interesting article--those same physicians are notorious for bullying nurses. I once worked with a surgeon who constantly yelled at, intimidated young nurses. I despised him. One time, I actually heard him tell a new doc " Be sure that they are afraid of you--they will take better care of YOUR patients if they are afraid of incurring your wrath".
Needless to say, I wasn't intimidated by him and I did everything I could to protect the younger nurses. It has always amazed me that the medical community accepts these behaviors. Why don't their fellow physicians step in and stop it?
On Bullying in the Medical Profession
Image from Royal College Surgeons, Edinburgh A recent NY Times article is a good introduction to the pervasive bullying that informs medical training. Sadly, bullies find their way into the profession of medicine and thrive in the halls of the academe. When I was a resident, there was an atte...
Death is no longer just in the hands of god or fate, but often a decision
This is how I killed my mother. On 30 October 2017 I had just landed at Heathrow from Melbourne. I had the strangest feeling I should not go directly to bed. I wondered if I should visit my mother, Margaret Black, a 92 year old retired anaesthetist living very independently... Continue reading
Posted Jun 1, 2018 at Keepers
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Medical Hysteria
Inappropriate medical activity is directly proportional to the gravity of the patient’s illness, and inversely proportional to the likelihood of real or lasting therapeutic benefit. This inappropriate medical activity can be called medical hysteria. In Medical Hysteria, JM Naish, The Lancet 1970 Download Medical Hysteria Naish Continue reading
Posted Feb 25, 2018 at Medical Keepers
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How to Swim With Sharks
Posted Dec 3, 2016 at Medical Keepers
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Health Professionals Must be Ethnographers
by Sébastien Moine, BMJ 2016; 355 (Published 28 November 2016) Mapping the territory of human suffering with only clinical tools, diagnostic tests, and biomedical concepts is difficult, if not impossible.1 Or to say it differently, it doesn’t seem easy, or reasonable, to answer the questions of how to live a... Continue reading
Posted Dec 3, 2016 at Medical Keepers
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Health Professionals Must be Ethnographers
by Sébastien Moine, BMJ 2016; 355 (Published 28 November 2016) Mapping the territory of human suffering with only clinical tools, diagnostic tests, and biomedical concepts is difficult, if not impossible.1 Or to say it differently, it doesn’t seem easy, or reasonable, to answer the questions of how to live a... Continue reading
Posted Dec 3, 2016 at Medical Keepers
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From Bonnie M. "Dr. Elpern,
Just to let you know I had a similar experience when I was at UMass Medical in Worcester for a week. The doctors are very good but have so many patients that they do not have a lot of time to be with you. There was an amazing lady who brought the food and happiness to me. Being from Africa her children are going to high school or college in Africa she smiled all of the time. She talked to them on the phone. She has been working hard to make a better life. She continued to talk to me more and more eventually telling me she had lived on the street for awhile and still smiling. She visited each day for a while showing happiness which helped me through the many days there."
My Singing Angel
by Jane E. Babin (We published a version version of this in 2006 on the precursor to C2S Blog) It may be easier to read as a pdf: Download My Singing Angel Babin When I entered Massachusetts General Hospital last April to have a feeding tube placed in my stomach, I was very apprehensive. Don't g...
From Richard Ratzan: alan was a gentle and caring soul but not wishy washy. he was a good friend over the years and we enjoyed talking. he embodied living the spiritually brave life. i liked cecily too
Rev. Dr. Alan Mermann, 1923 - 2015
Philosopher, Physician, Minister, Humanist, Friend We were fortunate to have known Alan Mermann, a dear and glorious physician who, during his earthly tenure, wore many hats: cared for pediatric patients, investigated art, music, philosophy and attended to the spirit. He was a pioneer in death...
From Sandra Bertman: Oh my--a dear voice from the long ago past. Thank you David. His gentleness, egoless presence was so obvious --always. I recall meeting Cicely. Wish I could find some of that old correspondence and/or somehow stayed in touch. After Florence Wald died and Morris Wessel (?) I lost touch with that wonderful group. Just read Alan's obit. I'll forward it to Sally Bailey who has moved South.
Rev. Dr. Alan Mermann, 1923 - 2015
Philosopher, Physician, Minister, Humanist, Friend We were fortunate to have known Alan Mermann, a dear and glorious physician who, during his earthly tenure, wore many hats: cared for pediatric patients, investigated art, music, philosophy and attended to the spirit. He was a pioneer in death...
from Samuel Abady, Esq: "Such experiments mirrored Nazi medical experimentation on helpless test subjects at Buchenwald, Dachau, Natzweiler, and Ravensbrück; the less well known but equally horrid Japanese Unit 731 medical experiments during World War II; and the Tuskegee syphilis study conducted between 1932 and 1972.
These are discussed in Jonathan D. Moreno, Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans (2000). The government’s report on the infamous Tuskegee study is here: http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cphl/history/reports/tuskegee/tuskegee.htm [Pub. Health Serv., U.S. Dep't of Health, Educ. & Welfare, Final Report of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Ad Hoc Advisory Panel (1973)].
In 1966, Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights stated, “no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.” [G.A. Res. 2200 (XXI), U.N. Doc. A/6316 (Dec. 16, 1966)].
But is mere “free consent” sufficient? Prof. Jay Katz at Yale Law School thinks not. I bet you’ll appreciate his discussion of the subject in the attached law review article.
Secret Testing of Chemical Weapons by U.S. on Its Own Troops
Andy Tanji, our Honolulu correspondent, brought an important report to our attention. Rollins Edwards, a WWII Test Subject During World War II, 60,000 enlisted men were enrolled in a secret government program — formally declassified in 1993 — to test mustard gas and other chemical agents on A...
A physician reader wrote: "powerful post, one person who trained around my time and did a laser fellowship recently told me, forget lasers, im starting to speak for psoriasis companies, they pay the big bucks. go figure!"
Who Is My Doctor?
Leana Wen, the new health commissioner of Baltimore, Maryland gave an instructive TED talk entitled “Who Is My Doctor,” and has famously said, I believe that medicine has maintained its mystique for far too long, and it’s time to open the veil of secrecy and have patients and providers alike pa...
Medicine Circle
This, the last collection of poems by George Bascom, was published in 1993, the year of his death. We have selected those poems of interest to those readers interested in health care and the human condition. Title Page Gloria 3 Operation 6 I With My Death 9 Notice 13 Post... Continue reading
Posted May 22, 2014 at George Bascom - Surgeon/Poet
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Letter from Dr. Bascom
Posted May 21, 2014 at George Bascom - Surgeon/Poet
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The Flake
The great auditorium was cool and quiet. The speaker, a silver haired surgeon in his sixties, professor and chairman of his department, leaned with one elbow on the podium and with a pointer indicated on the huge projection of his slide the point at which the pancreatic duct entered the... Continue reading
Posted May 20, 2014 at George Bascom - Surgeon/Poet
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George Bascom Bio
George S. Bascom, M.D. (1927 – 1993) Dr. Bascom wrote, “I first heard the music in Shakespeare in a dark auditorium in Topeka (Kansas) as a high school student, first wrote a little poem as a grade schooler, but began to work at it more or less seriously as a... Continue reading
Posted May 20, 2014 at George Bascom - Surgeon/Poet
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A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
by Dylan Thomas Never until the mankind making Bird beast and flower Fathering and all humbling darkness Tells with silence the last light breaking And the still hour Is come of the sea tumbling in harness And I must enter again the round Zion of the water bead And the... Continue reading
Posted Mar 10, 2014 at Heaven's Door
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I just came across this quote: "Perfect does not mean perfect actions in a perfect world, but appropriate actions in an imperfect one. R.H. Blyth. Dilatation and Evacuation can be a necessary and appropriate action for a tragic situation.
My Child: A Poem by Phil Delrosario
Note: Because of formating concerns, this poem is better viewed as a pdf: Download My Child The jaws of silver monsters found you, disemboweled you, ferocious forceps leaving your tiny chest eviscerated; mutilated your precious head, and maybe brain asunder, you wonder why you were squandered. ...
Oslerian Online Book Club
The idea is to get a few cognoscenti together to read important (usually new) books about medicine and life. Hopefully, we'll be able to attract a minyan to share insights and points of view from diverse backgrounds - sharing a common interest in what lies between the Cell and the... Continue reading
Posted Jan 20, 2013 at Oslerian Online Book Club
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