Doctor’s Note

There is a word in Filipino that I have come to respect and fear in equal measure: tiis. It means to endure, to bear, to

There are few moments in medical practice more emotionally difficult than telling someone that a biopsy has confirmed cancer. For the patient, those few words

Doctors are accustomed to looking at the chart hanging at the end of the patient’s bed. Blood pressure. Pulse. Temperature. Laboratory results. Medications. Diagnosis. But

For much of my medical career, we have measured health with numbers. Blood pressure. Blood sugar. Cholesterol. Creatinine. Ejection fraction. Body mass index. They matter

We sometimes wear sleeplessness as a badge of honor.  “I only need four hours.” “I’ll sleep when I retire.” “I can catch up this weekend.”

As physicians, we are trained to take a history. Before treating the patient before us, we ask: What happened before? When did it begin? What

There is a wonderfully reassuring feature of ordinary vasovagal fainting. The patient wakes up. And that is also what makes syncope dangerous. Because once someone

As physicians, we spend much of our professional lives controlling risk factors one patient at a time. Stop smoking. Control blood pressure. Lower cholesterol. Exercise.

In medicine, we are trained to identify the patient. Sometimes that is not as straightforward as it seems. An elderly woman comes to clinic with

There is something deeply reassuring about seeing floodwater finally recede. After days of anxiety, families return home, roads reopen and cleanup begins. We naturally feel