New Stories

Do Everything You Can for Mom-Do Everything

Those words can make the physician shudder. In the years before 1970, approximately, the words translated to, “Do all the tests and treatments you think might help mom get over her condition, or at least make her comfortable.” In the mid to late 1960’s it became...

“Can’t You Just Give Me a Pill?”

“You have diabetes,” I tell the lady sitting in my examining room as I review some laboratory blood test results with her. She knew she had diabetes. Her mother had died from diabetes. Her two sisters have diabetes and had already checked her blood sugar levels with...

An Obscured Correction

In one of my practice locations I became friendly with an accountant. His wife, his mother, his mother-in-law, and his father-in-law were all my patients. I thought I knew the family pretty well, but there were hidden secrets. On the occasion of his mother’s periodic...

Demics – En, Epi, and Pan

(Originally published by Nevada Humanities, www.nevadahumanities.org, on July 12, 2021.) Each evening as I sit at the kitchen table my view is of the Virginia Range. For 26 years I have watched the light and shadows on the ridges and gullies of the Virginias sharpen,...

An Earthquake Baby

The recent spate of earthquakes experienced in Northern Nevada reminded me of my first Nevada earthquake in 1959. I was the doctor on call at the USPHS Indian Hospital in Schurz, NV. My housing was next door to the hospital so a call from the nurse that a lady in...

The Rest of the Story, Again

Paul Harvey was a well known 20th century and early 21st  century radio broadcaster with a large audience. For years on his radio show Paul Harvey would tell us “The Rest of the Story” in which a well known narrative became more fully understandable or had a different...

He Burned His Records

George Bernard Shaw said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion it has taken place.” A doctor and a patient must communicate.  Here is the story of an interview where communication truly was an illusion.  I was seeing a man I had seen...

AMA Against Medical Advice

Patients and doctors don’t always agree on their treatment plan or progress in treatment.  The patient may leave the hospital AMA after signing release of liability and discussion.  A patient may decline the ambulance attendant’s advice and refuse to be transported to...

He Died Happy

The lady was a patient new to my practice.  I was taking a history of her and becoming familiar with her.  Questions relating to previous illnesses, current problems, and her social history were asked and being answered, in part as follows. Me: ”Are you married and...

The Doctor Gets Schooled

As a group doctors tend to be firm and certain in their statements.  We often speak as if our information came from on high.  This manner of speaking can be fine for inspiring confidence in our patients that we know our stuff and the patient can be assured.  Sometimes...