I was affected by asthma as a young child and was pretty short of breath a lot of the time, not able to run that well or keep up with my friends riding a bike. My determination to beat this physical limitation not only lead to a life in medicine,  but caused me to engage…

I just saw Mozart’s Opera Don Giovanni at the Philadelphia Opera. I hope I am spoiling the opera for anyone when I say that Don Giovanni is sent directly into hell. He does not get the break that Faust does.  Giovanni is not what you would consider a nice person. He is mostly a rake,…

As a newly minted medical resident I wrote orders for antibiotics and cultures for a sick patient with pneumonia.  That night I happened to be on call.  I was chagrined when nurses awoke me at 2 AM to ask about something they had trouble deciphering. They had just gotten to taking off orders from 17…

If you Google a physician’s name,  you are likely to find as the first, second and third offerings, descriptions by doctor rating intermediaries. Those come well before biographies from the physician’s employer.  If your doctor is published or well- known, ratings by these agencies still  pop up first on web searches, because they have arranged…