Blog Archives

Oregon: Easier to Get an Assault Weapon Than a Doctor →

I pick up a Glock semiautomatic, the model used in the Virginia Tech massacre. I need to hold it, to feel it, to rub my finger across the trigger.

I don’t fear death. Raised in a morgue, I worked with my dad, the city medical examiner.

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Tags: assault weapon, guns, pamela wible, stethoscope

America: 350,000,000 Guns & 47,000 Psychiatrists →

We have a constitutional right to bear arms.

We have no constitutional right to health care.

America is the most heavily armed nation in the world.

America also leads the world in mental illness.

Half of all Americans develop at least one mental illness.

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Tags: guns, pamela wible, psychiatrists

Housecalls for the Homeless →

Dr. Pamela Wible spends the afternoon with Tamara and Marlo on 7th & Washington in Eugene, Oregon. A photoessay by Pamela Wible, M.D.

Pamela Wible,

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Tags: homeless, housecalls, ideal medical care, pamela wible

Why Physicians Commit Suicide →

I’ve been a doctor for twenty years. I’ve not lost a single patient to suicide. I’ve lost only colleagues, friends, lovers–ALL male physicians–to suicide. Why?

Here’s what I know:

A physician’s greatest joy is the patient relationship.

Assembly-line medicine undermines the patient-physician relationship.

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Tags: ideal medical care, pamela wible, physician suicide

How does a Jewish doctor prepare for the holidays? By decorating her house with festive medical specimens, of course! All have been retrieved from human bodies, many during autopsies. I’m a hoarder with a medical art fetish. It started with my turquoise and heart valve necklace. Now my IUD Christmas tree.

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Tags: ideal medical care, medical art, medical waste, pamela wible