Last Thursday, a good classmate and I had the privilege of visiting a patient with metastatic cancer for our mandatory “palliative care experience.” Under the guidance of an attending physician, we explored how the patient coped with her diagnosis and subsequent therapies and probed her plans for the future. Read more
As future doctors, we agree that our patients have total control over which form of treatment they will receive (regardless of our own recommendations), but what if the “treatment” they desire is a choice we didn’t present them with. How about something as drastic as death? Keep in mind… I’m not talking about DNRs here. I’m talking about a patient walking into the clinic and asking you to kill him/her.
Read more
According to a Kashmiri proverb, “until a physician has killed one or two he is not a physician.” At first, it seems kind of harsh to consider the aforementioned statement as even remote truth, but if you think about it, most professions can abide by something similar. Read more
Euthanasia is a well known practice in healthcare and research. Some consider it a feasible option which should always be available as a “last resort” but consider it an option nonetheless. Others frown upon its usage in the treatment of human patients but feel its acceptable in the laboratory setting. I think its also very similar to abortion in that its involves the voluntarily extermination of a life; however, at least euthanasia is performed after the consent of a patient. Fetuses can’t give their opinion before someone sentences them to death. In this post, I address euthanasia in a small context – a doctor treating a human patient.
If it was possible, would you want to know the exact date of your death? When attempting to answer this question, I realized how blissful a state of ignorance can be. The question exemplifies how mankind’s obsessive pursuit of wanting to know “everything” may have drawbacks.
I recently saw The Bucket List (great movie by the way) and decided to compile a similar list to that referenced in the film.
We all come across individuals who dazzle us. People who seem to have it all and then some. People who we we might be jealous of but have the utmost respect for. People we want to idolize and emulate. Dr. Michael E. DeBakey is such a figure for me.
With over a million new cases diagnosed each year in the United States, skin cancer is indeed a widespread reality. In fact, this form of cancer accounts for roughly half of all newly diagnosed cancers. Even with this fact, very few are informed about the risk factors, symptoms, and treatment of this potentially preventable and curable condition.
Dale Herrington on 
amy on 
Nikki on 
amy (1)
Dale Herrington (1)