It had been a great party, and it was wonderful to see everyone again. He hadn’t seen Karen or Ethan since graduate school, and it was a fun time catching up. Now, cognizant on the overindulgence of grilled chicken and hard root beer, Dr. Ian Ho was stirring his third cup of coffee of the …
Month: July 2016
The Case of Cynthia
This post is based upon a case I worked on years ago. It was latter written up and published in a Neurological Journal in 2014, but bears repeating. My good friend Siobhain Crosbie, a Psychotherapist in London, UK., helped me write up the account for publication. Fetal alcohol syndrome is a well-known and well-described condition …
The Aniversary Cruise
The cruise had been a gift from Ed and Nadine Worth’s four children in celebration of their 30th wedding anniversary. The weather had been perfect, the seas calm, and the couple of cannot remember ever having so much fun. The fun however stopped on the third day after an outing in Mexico, as the couple began …
Caribbean Blue
Something was wrong. Jane could not put a finger on it, but she just felt different. She had woken at 4 AM, which was not unusual as she was often awake in the early morning. She was expected at the plant by 5:15; breakfast routinely included a cereal bar and a cup of coffee, which …
The Beach
Tomorrow was the first day back at school, and Angela Gonzalez could not be more excited. She had not seen her friends since before the spring vacation. She carefully selected, with her mother’s help, her clothes for the first day back. As a fifth-grader, Angela and most of her friends were in Mrs. Clark's room. …
Who Watches the Watchers?
Although my posts are usually concerned with strange medical puzzles or odd diagnoses, every once in a while I like to shift gears and talk about something from the research aspect of clinical epidemiology and medicine. This is one of those times. For those unfamiliar, the institutional review board or IRB is a person or …
Not as First Appeared
The snow was falling the day before Christmas. Stephen Smith, M.D. sighed softly to himself and thought of his warm recliner next to the fireplace that awaited him as soon as his shift was done. Since graduating medical school, Stephen had made this city his home. Raised in Cape Breton, he had always loved the …
Stress, Mindfulness and Mind-Full-Ness
Stress. Define it any way you wish but simply put, stress is the body's reaction to any change that requires an adjustment or response. The unstressed state of the mind is called “Homeostasis.” Homeostasis is the tendency of a system, for example, the human body, to maintain balance or equilibrium when faced with external changes. …
The Swim Coach
The headaches had gotten worse since Sarah woke that morning. She stood, gazing into her bathroom mirror, slowly turned, and went back to bed. There was no way she was going to work today. Not the way she felt. She reached for her cell phone and called the waterfront director at the summer camp. He …
Ebola: Who to Trust? Who to Follow?
This is a photograph of Kitty Genovese. If you do not know who she was, or why she died, you will by the end of this post. It should leave you troubled, if for no other reason than it could easily happen to any of us. Recently the panic over Ebola hemorrhagic fever has galvanized …
Adventures in Epidemiology 