Yet Another electronic health record
I have lost count of the number of different electronic health records I have used in my career. When I started it was only the paper record, the SOAP note, the numbered diagnoses and their associated plans written out in blue or black ink on lined white paper.
Celebrating summer
Summer is in full bloom here on Narragansett Bay. It is a lovely time to celebrate nature, the utter beauty and awe
Perspective
It is refreshing to see my world through the eyes of others. I know I have a privileged life here in the US. I am educated, the right skin color, have enough money to live in a “good” neighborhood, and have the freedom to go where I wish. Or another way to say it is WEIRD . . .
Tis the season of gratefulness…
I am thankful for all that I take for granted:
Living in a war-free area of the US. My recent 2 months in Nablus, Palestine, reminded me of the gift of not hearing drones and military planes flying overhead night and day. And to live in a US neighborhood where I am not afraid.
Life Lessons
Summer seems to be winding to an early the end. Brown and yellow leaves are already falling due to the drought that has taken its toll here in Rhode Island. While the drought is much worse in other parts of the US, not to mention Africa and South Sudan, even here in Rhode Island where there are 400 miles of coastline, crops are lost.
Seeding Hope
“Give them hope.” That was my charge from the course directors in Gateways, a pipeline masters in science program at Brown University created to increase the diversity of the physician workforce. Started by Dr. Gowri Anandarajah six years ago, the first two weeks of the program this summer have focused on various aspects of the US health…
School-Based Clinics in 2021
I first provided care in school-based clinics in the 1990s. My most memorable crisis was an early morning page from the clinic nurse who had a flare for the dramatic. We didn't have cell phones back then, so I found the coins to call her from a pay phone at the cafe where I was having breakfast with a colleague.
"I think I have a student in labor. Can you get in here fast?" Stacy's voice…
Play it again
Twenty years ago, I was sitting on the concrete stairs outside the Shoulder to Shoulder apartments in Santa Lucia, Honduras, when I heard the announcer on a colleague’s short wave radio say that US troops were moving into Afghanistan. My compatriots (physicians, nurses, residents and medical students) on the medical mission out of the University of Cincinnati…
Ugliness begets beauty
Skunk cabbage smells like its name, but has a deep purple spotted leaf-like flower and gives rise to something that looks like Romaine lettuce--some of the first greens of the spring in damp areas. Spring is here.