Around the turn of the fourth century BCE, Hippocrates wrote, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food,” and with this same frame of mind, pondered the nature of mental illness. He believed that depression was caused by an overabundance of black bile and that insanity (hysteria) was, at least in females, due […]
The Path not Taken for Path
As many of you likely know, for those like me who are in their last year of medical school this month contains Match Day, when we will be notified of where we will spend our residencies and potentially our fellowships and beyond. While those familiar with my posts know that I applied into and will […]
February Favorites During Residency
Given all the hardships in residency, I wanted to write a fun blog where I talk about all the fun parts of my life that I enjoy during residency…. because regardless of a pandemic and intern year, there are parts of my life that I enjoy. I think that it would be a good idea […]
My 2021 Plans!
With the new year and the vaccine coming out for COVID-19 I think that we can expect to see a bright future ahead especially in surge areas. That does not mean that we can stop wearing our masks, social distancing, and taking cautionary measures as we need to. I wanted to discuss some of my […]
Lessons from Wuhan’s Past and Present
To those familiar with the city’s history there is poignant poetry in the fact the pandemic which has rocked the world for the last year emerged from Wuhan. More than 50 years ago in the midst of the cultural revolution, the city bore witness to another health crisis an analysis of which in addition to […]
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that was first described in a 1999 paper by David Dunning and Justin Kruger. In it, they described the results of several studies where individuals who scored low on various measures of cognitive ability tended to overestimate their knowledge or skill in a particular domain, while those who […]
Virtual Empathy
As I was listening to a seminar on racial disparities in colorectal cancer screening yesterday, the speaker brought up an excellent point about the importance of virtual empathy going forward in this new era of telemedicine. He stressed that we need to think of ways to integrate empathy into our virtual interactions with patients because […]
To Kiss the Banana Trunk: Using the Lessons of Ebola in the Fight Against COVID-19
In December of 2013, an 18-month-old boy fell ill in a small village in Guinea. Although it was not initially apparent, he had been infected—most likely from a bat reservoir—with Zaire ebolavirus. Within months, the outbreak had spread to the major cities of neighboring countries and in August of 2014, the WHO declared the West […]
Acoustic Shadows
During the battle of Gettysburg, military observers encountered a strange phenomenon. Perched at one vantage, some watchers saw the flash of muzzles and rising smoke but could not perceive the sound of battle. While others, situated miles behind the front lines, were deafened by the thunder of cannons. This phenomenon, which was widely reported at […]
I Belong
One of the most fulfilling feelings (especially for someone like me who can be so indecisive) is to know when you belong. I have been off service for a few months, and let me tell you, I could not wait to be back on a Psychiatry rotation! Sure enough, during the month of January, I […]
