A new patient calls for an appointment. I ask, “What would you like to come in for?”
“Depression. Two weeks ago my doctor put me on antidepressants.”
“Why don’t you see your current doctor?” I ask.
“I feel weird discussing my emotions with someone who doesn’t have any.”
…
Joe just had open-heart surgery. A triple bypass. When he left the hospital last month, he promised he’d follow a healthy diet and quit smoking for good. I call to review his cholesterol results. He picks up on the second ring.
“Hold on a minute,” he says.
The reception is poor,
…
Joe has smoked two packs per day since his teens. He knows better. I don’t need to lecture him on the dangers of smoking.
“I was a respiratory therapist back in Brooklyn,” Joe says in his thick New York accent.
“And you smoked?”
“Yep.
…
I started kissing patients in med school. And I haven’t stopped.
During my third year pediatric rotation, I used to stay up late at night in the hospital, holding sick and dying children. I’d lift them from their cribs, kiss them, and sing to them, rocking them back and forth until they fell asleep.
…
Last week a woman told me that she had a miscarriage in her bathroom. She was terrified. She didn’t know what to do. So she flushed it down the toilet.
A miscarriage is the spontaneous expulsion of a fetus from the womb before it is able to survive on its own.
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More and more doctors are leaving jobs they hate and opening ideal clinics.
It’s a national trend.
Now there are hundreds of ideal clinics nationwide. Find one near you on this map. Meet some of the most innovative doctors in the country in these news stories.
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Dr Pamela Wible has been described as medicine’s Martin Luther King. Born into a family of physicians, her parents warned her not to pursue medicine. She followed her heart only to discover that to heal her patients she had to first heal her profession. So she led a series of town hall meetings inviting citizens to design the clinic of their dreams.
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I am a woman doctor, but I inherited a patriarchal medical model. A patriarchal medical model rewards male values.
MALE VALUES:
But I am a woman doctor.
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I’m an obsessive-compulsive collector. So is my dad.
Raised in a morgue, I worked alongside Dad, the city medical examiner. Over fifty years, he amassed a huge collection of medical artifacts. My siblings don’t want any of it. So now I’m the curator of the collection.
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Go ahead and laugh, but it’s true. Men get Pap smears too.
Not all men. Just high-risk men who have sex with men.
The female Pap smear is a screening test for cervical cancer, which is a sexually-induced cancer caused by the Human Papillomavirus. The Human Papillomavirus is also easily transmitted to the anus in men who have sex with men.
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It’s Valentine’s Day 1997. I’m at Sacred Heart Hospital admitting a colleague’s patient—an elderly man dying of heart disease. On oxygen, gasping for life, he exchanges no words. His wife—unable to bear the pain of watching him die—leaves the room. So it’s just the two of us this Valentine’s Eve.
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After two decades of formal education, today I’m finally set loose with real patients. It’s the actual moment I’ve been waiting for my entire life.
We’re each assigned to a family doc for the month. I scroll down the list of third-year medical students, place my right index finger beside my name,
…
Evan, a retired police officer, calls for an urgent appointment. I can hear the angst in his voice.
“Sure Evan, come right over.”
An hour later, he arrives in obvious distress. “I gotta show you something, Doc.” We proceed to the exam room. He pulls his pants down and points to his left testicle.
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Many busy clinics display a large fish tank in the waiting room. Staring at fish can help patients relax and lower blood pressure and anxiety before appointments. But how do fish feel about staring at miserable patients all day long?
In the fall of 1999, an exotic eel makes his feelings known.
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Residents in Salem, Oregon, are designing an ideal medical clinic. Slated to open by April 2013, the clinic may feature a dinosaur exam table, a cool gecko that greets patients at the front desk, and maybe even a pet goat. But the final design will be determined by citizens gathering at town hall meetings over the next few months.
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Doctor revived after suicide. Here's what he says.
