I was not surprised to learn about a recent study at a VA Hospital that showed veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) benefitted from a writing program. Needless to say, there are many who served in the military who experienced psychological traumas that have lingered for years after their combat experiences. It turns out […]
A Medical Humanist's Notes
What Does Cancer Screening Tell Us?
Cancer is an especially frightening disease. To “catch it early” we have come to rely on screening tests such as a mammogram, PSA, and colonoscopy. Whether a physician recommends a test or we learn about it through advertisements, we have come to believe that early detection will significantly increase life expectancy. Yet, a recent article […]
Can a Low-Tech Tool Improve Healthcare Delivery?
We are all grateful for high-tech innovations in medical science. In a recent blog I spoke about the benefits of artificial intelligence in helping doctors make accurate diagnoses and develop more effective treatment plans. Despite these advances in technology, a patient’s understanding of medical information can still be a challenge. In describing the clinician’s […]
Will Artificial Intelligence Replace My Doctor?
There is little doubt that artificial intelligence (AI) is going to have a profound effect on healthcare delivery. This technology has the potential to improve medical diagnoses and treatment planning. AI can also generate documentation for medical records and save time, something that is at a premium in the medical world. The role of […]
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Recently, I was thinking about the Rolling Stones lyric “You can’t always get what you want but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need” and found myself checking the dictionary for the definitions of “want” and “need.” I discovered that “want” is a desire for something that you could live […]
We’re All Confused
There are no rules for proper behavior, conversation or actions when there’s an advancement of a serious illness and no viable treatment options. Patients can find themselves confused when trying to communicate with family and friends about a dire prognosis and an uncertain future. This brings to mind what a friend with advanced breast cancer […]
No Recognizable Guideposts
In a 1988 Village Voice article “The Land of The Sick,” Paul Cowan spoke of his experience of illness and declared, “It is a world that has its own language, its own geography, its own authority figures and its own calendar dictated by the changes in one’s body or by results of medical tests–most of […]
Waiting for…
In my work as a medical humanist, I would often hear cancer patients talk about anxiously waiting for appointments, test results and possible side effects of treatments, as if these were common experiences in medical care. With these concerns in mind, I offered patients in my Writing is Good Medicine program an exercise on “waiting,” […]
Patients as Real Time Teachers
During my tenure as a medical humanist at a cancer center in Vermont, I was an eyewitness to the challenges that patients and healthcare providers faced in communicating about serious illness. What I learned became source material for the Center for Communication in Medicine’s (CCM) programs and tools to improve healthcare communication. Although the educational […]
Line of Sight
I have found that many patients feel the need to protect their loved ones from hearing about the physical and emotional ordeal of living with serious illness. An example of this dynamic emerged in the video that accompanies SpeakSooner: A Patient’s Guide to Difficult Conversations where Laura Byrne tells us, “I don’t want anyone to […]