Latest Voices

In June 2013, my life was upended by a psychotic break after several months of chaotic and progressively disabling thoughts and behaviors. Then, on Father’s Day in the early morning, I became acutely manic, convinced I was going to solve the problem of the exorbitant cost of undergraduate education. Instead of sleeping, I wrote frantically in a notebook, filling the pages with my thoughts and plans for saving humanity. Meanwhile, I also became convinced that my upcoming presentation for my Master’s in Health Professions Education should be the first and in fact only presentation at that day’s Convocation Seminar. At

I started my nursing career in 1977 after graduating from an excellent NYU nursing program. I moved upstate to work in a community hospital’s Cardiac Care Unit.

It was wonderful to care for a manageable number of patients who were afflicted with a variety of cardiac conditions. At that time, nurses were allowed to insert IVs and NG tubes, manage various medicated drips, and follow standing orders in emergent situations. Every patient was visited by their own family doctor who was committed and passionate about their patient’s care.

My wife was a nurse. She trained at LA County USC Medical Center, the same place where I began my internship as a physician. Because of her career, I was always respectful of nurses but not fully aware of how valuable they really are.

When I completed high school in 1965, three career options awaited me: secretary, nurse, teacher. I had the skills for the first, having spent the summer I turned twelve taking typing and shorthand at a business school, but I lacked interest in the job. My fear of blood and needles eliminated nursing from my future. Thus, I became a teacher—a profession that fulfilled me for more than four decades.

Dear readers,

When I was thirty years old and in my first year of medical school, I came down with symptoms–extreme thirst and frequent urination–that turned out to be type 1 diabetes, formerly known as juvenile onset. My body wasn’t producing any insulin, and I was hospitalized.

During my five-day stay, I had to make some adjustments and learn a few things. The biggest adjustment was this: I had to accept that without insulin injections, I would die and that unless I controlled my blood sugar well, I could suffer all kinds of serious complications from diabetes–and then die.

The