Debbie and I recently devoured the audio version of this summer’s hottest read: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal reporter John Carryrou. It’s a mesmerizing business thriller about the rise and fall of blood-testing startup Theranos, a Silicon Valley unicorn with a one-time value of […]
{Update from Sam} In case you think that I am only concerned with old age pensioners, death, and dying, here’s a thought on a different subject. I can’t look at, drive over, or walk on the Brooklyn Bridge without remembering that it is built with granite from Carver’s Harbor on Vinalhaven, a small island community […]
Sorry for the radio silence since publication day on Feb. 6, 2018 of At Peace: Choosing a Good Death After a Long Life. I’ve been on my “book tour” (please note the small letters and quotation marks). This was not a Book Tour with red carpets, black limos, personal assistants, and the exchange of pleasantries […]
* Add your review to Sam’s Amazon book page! – Debbie * Sometimes you have to go for it, as my youngest grandchild is doing with his first birthday cake. His oldest sister verbalized her baby brother’s thoughts as he reached for the remaining cake: “Hmm… this looks promising.” Today is pub date for my book, […]
When I was a practicing physician, there was nothing more meaningful or rewarding than a middle-of-the-night emergency endoscopy, usually completed successfully (although occasionally not), when a patient’s esophagus was cleared of obstructing food or a bleeding ulcer was clipped and cauterized. The tension of the scene would dissipate with the team’s collective sigh of relief […]
As I wait for the publication date (Feb. 6, 2018) to arrive, my mind is playing tricks on me. I wake up at night, asking myself if I have made one of several central points in my book. In the morning, I remember I have. Other books on end-of-life issues are popping up or recently […]
Greetings, loyal readers. It is time that I stop procrastinating and start with the most ambitious makeover of the Gap Year After 60 era. It is time that I become a self-promoter. At Peace: Choosing a Good Death After a Long Life is in production with my publisher, Hachette / Grand Central Life & Style. […]
Lethal injection is not the only way to assert some control over how you die when you are old and suffering from a terminal illness. You might not know that if you read the recent piece by Catherine Porter in the New York Times: At His Own Wake, Celebrating Life and the Gift of Death. […]
I’ve sent the final draft of my manuscript to the publisher and it has been accepted for publication. With that behind me, Debbie and I “snuck away” recently for a trip to Italy – a walking tour of the coast of Liguria and the hills of Tuscany. It proved to be a delightful and illuminating […]
It turns out that I am suffering from my first episode of the Impostor Syndrome. Mighty uncomfortable it is, too. I suppose that I felt “impostorish” to some degree on my first day of my medical internship, but I don’t have a clear recollection. Certainly, there were many other emotions and concerns to crowd out […]
