Best of Physicians Blogs

Being Jewish I have always worked on Christmas. Having no family obligations, I always have fun at the parties people put on in the hospital. When I worked emergency, I always preferred the people suffering from indigestion and loneliness who showed up at Christmastime to the obnoxious drunks and driving disasters of New Years Eve.

Sometimes toughing it out is a terrible idea—and it takes things truly falling apart before we admit we need help.

With primary care sometimes difficult to access and ER wait times high, the number of patients leaving without treatment has spiked.

I’m sitting patiently in a confining, V-shaped waiting room that barely accommodates six time-eroded faux-leather chairs. This professional building has a familiar, déjà vu vibe, perhaps because I had done time here in a previous life—25 years in fact.

Medicine and music have a lot in common. For one thing, they both have charts full of notes.

Four real-world cases reveal how well-intentioned, evidence-based care can still cause harm.

The repeat phone calls from the dealership were genuine. It had been more than a year since my last service. I got to thinking about my own body. Shouldn’t it too have scheduled maintenance?

I remember a few ‘firsts’ in my day. It can be a bit intimidating to be the first to do something in the ER. What if it goes wrong? But if it has to happen, if someone has to try a new method, it might as well be me.

Dr. Melissa Yuan-Innes shares some tips on how to be the bearer of bad news.

Quebec doctors, how are you doing? I understand if you refuse to speak out because you'll be targeted afterward. However, I hear that so many of you applied for a New Brunswick medical license that the website crashed.

Imagine lawyers or dentists or veterinarians or anyone else being treated like this?

Dr. John Crosby recounts spending Halloween at the emergency department in what he describes as the scariest night of his 78-year career.

Perimenopause can be tricky, with some symptoms more easily eased than others. But there is plenty of help to offer our patients.

When patients have help with navigating the health system, it can be hugely beneficial. But that extra help isn’t always available, so here’s my advice to patients so they can help themselves.

My pain clinic has done a lot over the years to streamline the referral process. Our project of an internal audit became so thorough it actually turned into a study published in the Canadian Journal of Pain. But nothing is perfect—and primary care docs and specialists can always do better.

You may ask, why am I presenting ‘strange cases’ to an audience of primarily family doctors?

After leaving fertility medicine out of necessity, I discovered a new pace of practice–and in the process, a healthier, more present version of myself.

How a Galápagos turtle might’ve killed our hedgehog (and what it taught me about grief).