Listen to Debbie’s 90-year-old Dad talk about the most extraordinary election of his lifetime
{Update from Debbie} While you wait for the votes to be counted, listen to this short post-election podcast interview with my Dad. Those of you who know Frank Weil will really enjoy this one. And those of you who don’t… well, we can all aspire to being this engaged at age 90. Instructions for listening […]
Listen to Debbie’s podcast!
{Update from Sam} If you are wondering where Debbie has been over the past few months while I’ve been pontificating here on the blog (don’t worry; I will continue to do so in the future), she has not crawled under a rock. In fact, she has been working hard on her podcast, The Gap Year […]
Houston, We Have a Problem: A Retired Physician Remembers Fatal Mistakes
{Update from Sam} Natural selection is a process that many non-scientists deny in terms of evolution but embrace as an explanation when elderly people die because of the inability to outrun flood waters or a fire. Those deaths are caused by natural disasters and represent, to some, a “culling of the herd.” Through science and […]
What Covid-19 Teaches us About A Good Death
{Update from Sam} When the coronavirus and its resultant disease, Covid-19, first appeared on the scene in New York and Washington State, alarms went off throughout each state’s respective government offices. “Would there be enough personal equipment to protect front line health care workers? Would there be enough health care workers to care for the […]
How Safe Will You Be? The Proper Use of Gloves and Masks
As a gastroenterologist, I have had to get up close and professional (sometimes much more up close and personal than any normal person would want to be) with a host of germ-laden material. Try giving someone a fecal transplant through a colonoscope. And, during the early phase of the AIDS epidemic, gastroenterologists were frequently the […]
The Ritual of Medicine Is Threatened By the Rise of Telemedicine
Recently I saw an article describing the tension between a patient and her oncologist when considering a follow-up appointment during this coronavirus pandemic. On the surface it posed simple questions. Should they meet and risk cross infection? Could they accomplish their goals through telemedicine? Below the surface it underscored the value of medical ritual and […]
Should the Elderly Decline Ventilators?
This post is going to be very grim. I hope you will take it as useful information and food for thought. Despite the call for more ventilators, these breathing machines are not a panacea for elderly patients. As Coronavirus sweeps the country, and as governors beg for federal assistance, the reality of mechanical ventilation for […]
New on the podcast: an interview with Sam about end-of-life and reinvention
In the newest episode of my Gap Year For Grown-Ups podcast, I bring Sam back on the show to talk about end-of-life and how that relates to the topic of reinvention. Click here to listen. We talk about the inevitability of being forced to reinvent yourself in the last stage of your life when you […]
Twenty Things for 2020
Hello and Happy New Year, dear reader. And wishing you all the best in the year ahead. I scribbled this list of intentions and plans for 2020 randomly on a yellow pad. Then looked again and realized they fell out into categories. Health If you don’t have your health in this beyond midlife stage, then […]
Redefining medical futility: my thoughts… and yours!
Dear loyal reader, It has been months since I last offered you a musing on medicine. Although dormant, I have not been stagnant. During those months, I have been thinking about my next writing project and here it is. Drum roll, please… “Redefining Medical Futility.” Although the through lines of At Peace; Choosing a Good […]