fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

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fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

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Paul Gross

An Editor’s Invitation: Racism

Leave a Comment / Racism /
It feels as if our nation is bleeding.
Bleeding from the death of 100,000 COVID-19 victims.
And bleeding from the recent reminders that racism is not only alive and well in this great land of ours, its consequences are deadly. Racism is killing us through illness, through police violence, through mass incarceration and through the myriad ways that children and adults are given or denied opportunities and second chances, based upon skin color.

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An Editor’s Invitation: COVID-19, Chapter 2

Leave a Comment / COVID-19, Chapter 2 /
This month’s More Voices theme is COVID-19, Chapter 2. Coronavirus is still very much with us, affecting us in ways we couldn’t have imagined a few months ago.
I’ve been doing telemedicine these past weeks. I’ve had the privilege of accompanying, by phone, a number of my patients who’ve been doing battle with the virus at home–and to everyone’s great relief, most of them have done well.

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An Editor’s Invitation: COVID-19

Leave a Comment / COVID-19 /
April’s More Voices theme is COVID-19.

What else could it be?

I hope that you’ll take a few moments to send us a short first-person piece on how COVID-19, a term that was utterly foreign to us just a few weeks ago, has impacted you.
Here’s how it’s changed my workplace: As of yesterday, my hospital in the Bronx had about 500 patients admitted with the COVID-19 diagnosis. Over sixty of those were in the ICU.

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An Editor’s Invitation: Aging

Leave a Comment / Aging /
It’s recently come to my attention that I am aging.
I used to find it easy to ignore this particular phenomenon, but as the decades have passed, as my two daughters have now reached their mid- and late-twenties, and as my morning body becomes increasingly creaky, I find this reality staring me in the face–sometimes literally, as I look in the mirror.
The most disconcerting aspect of this aging business: the vanishing names.

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An Editor’s Invitation: Turning Over a New Leaf

Leave a Comment / Turning Over a New Leaf /
At one time or other, we’d all like to turn over a new leaf.

Which leaf would you choose right now, in 2020, and which have you chosen in the past?

For now, I would choose the leaf that has me feeling bad whenever I run late seeing patients–which is always–because I haven’t figured out how to keep a visit within the 20-minute slot that’s been allotted.

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An Editor’s Invitation: My Aching Back

Leave a Comment / My Aching Back /
Back pain is as common as rain. It’s one of the most frequent concerns that patients bring to me as a family physician.
And I can identify with that pain–at least a little bit.
I had back pain as a teenager. I remember going to see a doctor about it. She examined me, took a pointless X-ray and then offered me something priceless: reassurance. “You’re a muscular guy,” she said, even though I weighed a scrawny 120 pounds.

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An Editor’s Invitation: Drinking

Leave a Comment / Drinking /
At my college, if you were male, drinking beer earned you acceptance, admiration and praise. For some reason, drinking many beers and capping it off by violently throwing up was seen as manly.

I’m not much of a drinker, which took its toll on my college status. To this day, I’m happy sharing just one beer with my wife

I don’t consider this a matter of virtue, it’s simply the way I’m wired. Neither of my parents were big drinkers.

Yet in my own life and in my medical practice I’ve seen the impact of alcohol on others.

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An Editor’s Invitation: How Can I Help?

1 Comment / How Can I Help? /
Sometimes, when a patient comes to me with a myriad of thorny problems–“My teenage son is stressing me out…I’m so depressed…My back pain has come back…The insurance won’t cover any more physical therapy…None of the medicines are doing any good…My mother’s memory is failing…” I’ll ask, “How were you hoping I could help you today?”
 
Said unfeelingly, this question may sound like an attempt to shut my ears and cut to the chase. Expressed with genuine concern, however, I hope it comes across somewhat differently–as a wish to make best use of our time together, an invitation to shine a light on a path we can walk together.
 

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An Editor’s Invitation: Making Assumptions

Leave a Comment / Making Assumptions /
As a physician, I make assumptions all the time.
When a child or teenager presents to me with chest pain, I assume that the pain is not being caused by heart disease–the thing that they or their parent are most worried about.
Yes, I do my due diligence to confirm that assumption. But that snap judgment occurs as quickly as the words “chest pain” are out of a youngster’s mouth.

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