A Rancho Santa Fe Moment

I’ve never been good at snappy comebacks and witty one-liners.  I always think of what I wished I had said about two hours after the opportunity has vanished.  But today I did okay. I was in the local grocery store known as Harvest Ranch Market.  It’s an expensive little place, but known in the community… Continue reading A Rancho Santa Fe Moment

Get Along Little Doggies

Lately, I’ve been carrying around a couple of cowboys in my car.  One of them is riding a bay horse and leading a buckskin against the backdrop of the Southwest sky.  The other one is moving a small herd of Hereford cattle across a stream, cigarette dangling from his mouth.  A real Marlboro man.  They’re… Continue reading Get Along Little Doggies

And Always at My Back I Hear

I used to read a lot of books.  But then the Internet, and Facebook, and eBay took over, and these days I am lucky if I have time to read a magazine.  I find that there are two great places for magazine reading—on an airplane, and at the hairdressers.  From an experiential standpoint, these two… Continue reading And Always at My Back I Hear

Who We Really Are

When I was a resident in radiation oncology, I thought I already knew a lot about medicine.  After all, I had just completed an internal medicine residency, and had taken and passed my boards.  Needless to say, I was more than a little bit irritated the first time a patient “coded” in the radiation therapy… Continue reading Who We Really Are

An Exercise in Futility

I am working at home today.  And no, that’s not the exercise in futility, although it could be.  I have paperwork to complete, treatment summaries to write– odds and ends that don’t involve patient care. I am working at home because today, the carpet layers are putting in my brand new wall to wall carpet. … Continue reading An Exercise in Futility

Let Me Call It In For You

These days they have navigators for everything.  When we got lost back in the day, we used to consult a map, or lacking a map, we would pull in to the nearest “filling station” (what we used to call gas pumps) and ask for directions from the friendly young man who would appear to wash… Continue reading Let Me Call It In For You

What’s For Lunch?

These days, Thursdays are my busiest day of the week.  It’s the day I see all of my on treatment patients.  Currently there are thirty one of them—a busy load for a radiation oncologist.  Nonetheless, I have instructed my therapists that they must leave me time for lunch, and so they schedule the patients so… Continue reading What’s For Lunch?