In the June 1 issue of the New Yorker, Dr. Atul Gawande investigates “The Cost Conundrum”: why some cities in the USA have much higher medical costs per person, and often poorer outcomes. He lands in the dusty border town of McAllen, Texas, located in the lowest income county in the US. McAllen also has . . . → Read More: Collaborative Medicine
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Two years ago, an urgent call from my father: My mother, then 84, was ill. Gray skin, sunken eyes, confused. At the hospital, her blood tests showed abnormally high levels of calcium. She had calcium poisoning. Calcium poisoning? Six weeks prior, it turned out, the family doctor had instructed her to start taking calcium tablets . . . → Read More: How Doctors Think, by Jerome Groopman M.D. My mother is eighty-six. Other than needing a walker, she’s in good shape. Two months ago my father fell, confining him to bed on the top floor of their three-story townhouse. With my encouragement, my parents put a deposit on an apartment in Grand Oaks, a posh “assisted living” complex for well-to-do Washingtonians. But as . . . → Read More: Stumbling on Happiness, by Daniel Gilbert My father is 96. A month ago, he shuffled around the house, up and down the stairs, quite well by himself. Then, as he puts it, “I fell on my arse!” Oops! Compression fracture of the spine. Treatment: pain killers and bed rest. But, if he is ever to walk again, he must get up . . . → Read More: The Drug War Comes Home I remember, in the fourth grade, snipping colored feathers from construction paper to make my Indian bonnet. That was for the annual First Thanksgiving pageant. Dressed up as Indians and Pilgrims, we paraded around a table loaded with pies and a paper-maché turkey. We recited how the Pilgrims had landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. . . . → Read More: The Plague before Thanksgiving |
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