In Sickness and in Health: Seven Things to Know about Healthcare These Days

My 23 year old son says my blog posts are too long.  He says that his generation believes that if you can’t say what you mean in 350 words or less, you’re not worth reading. At the writer’s conference I attended last spring, I learned that books sell best if there are odd numbers in… Continue reading In Sickness and in Health: Seven Things to Know about Healthcare These Days

And Speaking of Plastic Surgery

I have a new favorite doctor show, “The Knick” on Cinemax, airing on Friday nights.   The show stars Clive Owen as the charismatic cocaine addicted Chief of Surgery Dr. John Thackery at a fictitious New York City hospital called The Kickerbocker at a time when surgery was one foot out of the barbershop.  The tagline… Continue reading And Speaking of Plastic Surgery

You Can’t Keep A Good Man Down

It’s been awhile since I got my readers up to speed on the adventures of Dad.  For those of you who are new to this blog, my father is a plastic surgeon who retired from full time practice about 15 years ago after a very successful academic career.  He turned 89 years old in July… Continue reading You Can’t Keep A Good Man Down

In Pursuit of Perfection

“Upon what instrument are we two spanned, and what musician holds us in his hands?” Rainer Maria Rilke This past week was a very busy yet very interesting time for me.  Early in the week, I had a visit from an old medical school classmate who is now one of our nation’s leading researchers in… Continue reading In Pursuit of Perfection

Do Dogs Know They are Dying?

Labor Day, 2006, is a day I will never forget.  It was a gorgeous day here in San Diego—bright, sunny and nearly 90 degrees.  I decided it was a perfect day to give the dogs an outdoor bath.  At the time, we had Valentine, the matriarch at nearly twelve years old, Izzy who was four,… Continue reading Do Dogs Know They are Dying?

To Find, To Have and To Give Away

These days I have begun to separate my life into two separate eras which I call BE and AE, “before eBay” and “after eBay.”  How could there have been so many things in the world which I never knew that I wanted?  I think back to the early days of my marriage, when my husband… Continue reading To Find, To Have and To Give Away

My Days In Dermatology

I’ve always been good at pattern recognition and my visual/spatial orientation is excellent. Photography is my hobby, so it was only natural that as a medical student and internal medicine resident, I loved my dermatology electives.  Each day yielded up a new parade of interesting skin lesions and rashes, and by the end of my… Continue reading My Days In Dermatology

Stuart Scott’s Acceptance Speech

Sometimes I feel like what I have to say isn’t very important and after watching a video clip of Stuart Scott accepting the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance tonight on ESPN, I think you might prefer to hear from him.  Background:  Stuart Scott was diagnosed with cancer of the appendix in 2007 and has been… Continue reading Stuart Scott’s Acceptance Speech

The Mating Game

When I was a kid, we lived in the Braeswood apartment complex in Houston, TX, right next to the A & P grocery store.  There were no leash laws back then, and everyone in the complex let their dogs run loose.  I have one distinct memory of dog breeding from “back in the day”—I went… Continue reading The Mating Game