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Author: Jennifer Lycette, MD

Using the concept of adjuvant chemotherapy to understand the benefits of universal masking for SARS-CoV2

Medical oncologists often find ourselves needing to advise people who do not look or feel sick to take chemotherapy. This concept, of course, is what we call adjuvant therapy — using chemotherapy in healthy people as an adjunct to surgery to increase the cure rate from surgery alone. I’ve been thinking about the concept of…

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Ten Wishes From a Rural Oncologist

update 11/2020: recipient of an Honorable Mention Award in the 2020 Writer’s Digest Writing Competition (print/online article category)! My patient is middle-aged, morbidly obese, with undiagnosed (until now) alcoholic cirrhosis, and a vaguely documented history of cardiac disease—per the chart “noncompliant” with medications. “Noncompliant” in this case turns out to mean he had no insurance…

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Book Review: In Shock, by Dr. Rana Awdish. A must-read memoir.

In the transcendent memoir “In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope” pulmonary/critical care physician Rana Awdish is seven months pregnant when she develops sudden onset of excruciating abdominal pain. She senses that the problem is not obstetrical, but something else — something visceral. But instead of being whisked…

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Book review: Bellevue, by David Oshinsky

Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital Bellevue. What images does the title bring to your mind? Ten Days in a Mad-House? Perhaps the most famous — and infamous — hospital in the United States. In this well-paced, engrossing history and biography of the storied institution, David Oshinsky lays out…

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Stressed Out or Burned Out? Here’s How to Tell

Guest Post by Dr. Rajeev Kurapati Burnout among medical professionals is an epidemic, and it’s impacting nearly every aspect of healthcare. For oncologists and practitioners working with cancer patients or other patients navigating difficult or terminal diseases, burnout can be especially insidious. One reason burnout can be so insidious is that even many medical professionals…

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Why All Clinicians Should Read This Memoir: a physician’s reflection on “Educated” by Tara Westover.

Spoiler Alert: Contains minor spoilers for the memoir “Educated” by Tara Westover “You seem very angry,” I say to my patient. It’s a basic technique in our physician tool chest, but I’d forgotten to try it—reflection. He hesitates. Surprise crosses his face. “I am,” he says. “But not at you.” I allow the space of…

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Will It Ever End? Reflections on being a sensitive empath in caregiving professions

Guest post by Leah Walsh In this guest post, author Leah Walsh explains what it means if you are one of the 20% of the human population to have a personality trait now established as “highly sensitive”, and how that might affect you if you work in a caregiving profession. Be sure to read through…

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