By Jonathan Glatt
Peer Reviewed
It was my first week on the wards as a third-year medical student, and I found myself huddled with the team in a busy corner of the Bellevue ED, listening to a man cough and wheeze his way through an interview. He was an elderly patient with an extensive smoking history–a lifetime of a destructive habit that had dilated and distorted his lungs beyond repair. He told us, between bouts of breathlessness, of worsening dyspnea and copious sputum production over …
By Chio Yokose, M.D.
Peer Reviewed
This week, Keith L. Scott was shot to death by police in Charlotte, North Carolina while his wife recorded the scene. The footage was broadcast widely and re-ignited the intense discussion about race relations and law enforcement in America. While the police allege that he had a weapon and posed an imminent threat, his family members report that he was holding a book, not a gun, as he prepared to pick up a child from school. Along with many …
By Elissa Driggin
Peer Reviewed
At almost every single one of my medical school interviews, each interviewer, noting my college major in nutritional science, asked some variation of the question, “What should I be eating to stay healthy?” Each time, I was left unsure of whether or not this question was aimed to gauge my ability to hold a conversation in a stressful environment, articulate my thoughts in a logical manner, or fulfill some other mysterious goal of the infamous medical school interview process. Or, …
Please enjoy this post from the archives, dated, January 11, 2013
By Jessica Taff, MD
As the 3 major teaching hospitals that make up NYU Medical Center begin to come back online, we thought it was the right time to share some of our reflections on Hurricane Sandy. It’s been a long strange journey for the faculty, housestaff, students and most of all our patients. It’s time now though for us to come back home; to return with a renewed sense of purpose and a …
By James Barger
Peer Reviewed
Asthma, an obstructive pulmonary disease characterized by bronchospasm and chronic airway inflammation, has afflicted mankind for millennia. In the 1st century AD, the Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia described an attack thus:
“the cheeks are ruddy, eyes protuberant, as if from strangulation…voice liquid and without resonance…they breathe standing, as if desiring to draw in all the air which they possibly can inhale, and, in their want of air they also open the mouth as if thus to enjoy the more …
By Sara Stream, MD
Peer Reviewed
A powerful explosion occurred in Chelsea on Saturday night, injuring at least 29 people, including one with a serious puncture wound. Authorities believe that a homemade bomb caused the explosion, referred to as “an intentional act” in a news briefing by Mayor Bill De Blasio. A second explosive device was later found several blocks away, which was removed by the Police Department bomb squad. Investigations are currently ongoing as New York City remains on high alert.
In national …
By Andrew Hallett
Peer Reviewed
For decades, surveys and public data have shown staggeringly high rates of suicide, suicidal ideation, and depression among physicians when compared to the general population.1-4 Male doctors are 40% more likely to commit suicide than other men, and female doctors are 130% more likely to do so than other women, according to a 2004 analysis in the American Journal of Psychiatry.5 With expanded access to care and new regulatory requirements under the Affordable Care Act increasing pressure on doctors, a …
By Katherine Lawrence, MD
Peer Reviewed
Yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of September 11, 2001. Fifteen years later, emotions are still strong; it was a day of memorials and memories, a celebration of those who gave their lives and reminder of the challenges that remain.
One of the many powerful legacies of 9/11 has been the chronicling of its health impacts. Both the city of New York and the federal government (including the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Occupational …
