‘Tis the season to be jolly. But what if you’re not? I’m revisiting one of my articles from December 2000 this month, because the subject is very much on my mind. Each year, from Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day, we enter the Season of Enforced Happiness. Merchants
Read more →
“The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.” –Arthur Schopenhauer Fundamental beliefs and core values are important in many major decisions, none more vital than the goals of care we establish for ourselves when experiencing a serious
Read more →
Caregiving is tough! There are physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges. When one is caring for someone with a prolonged and progressive illness such as dementia, the challenges are magnified. Despite the hardships and sacrifice, there can be blessings in the service. The exemplary physician and philosopher Albert
Read more →
“Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea” Alfred Lord Tennyson In early 19th century Europe, hospice was a rest house for travelers. Today,
Read more →
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” —William Shakespeare Many people equate the term “Palliative Care” with giving up on life, or at least with end of life care. To be sure, skillful and humane end of life care utilizes palliative care, but it’s
Read more →
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity.” -John Muir In capturing the essence of nature’s power to heal and restore us, poets have gotten it right for centuries. In the early 1800s,
Read more →“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it is spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” Carl Sandburg Another Valentine’s Day, our holiday that symbolizes love, is here again.
Read more →“It’s interesting to leave a place, interesting even to think about it. Leaving reminds us of what we can part with and what we can’t, then offers us something new to look forward to, to dream about.” Richard Ford in Harper’s, 1992 The return to school is
Read more →It’s a balmy summer evening. The sweltering heat and humidity of the day are subsiding, and the fireflies are beginning to twinkle in the corners of the yard. Ahhh. . .at last, time to relax on the back porch and watch the darkening sky fill up with
Read more →“The American ideal of masculinity. . .has created cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, punks and studs, tough guys and softies, butch and faggot, black and white. It is an ideal so paralytically infantile that it is virtually forbidden–as an unpatriotic act–that the American boy
Read more →
(Latin: doceō, I teach) I learned in medical school that the word, doctor, comes from the Latin word for teacher. I hold that thought closely... read more
These are articles I wrote while in private practice in the early 2000’s. These many years later, I still have folks who ask for links, so I’ve kept them active... read more
