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When my doctor told me my blood pressure and cholesterol are too high, and I jokingly told him “that’s a problem, because my three favorite food groups are salt, fat and alcohol,” he still rolled his eyes and looked disapproving.  Worse, he told me he wants me to take medicines. …

This was my latest column for the Free Lance-Star on Sunday June 27th. The FDA’s approval of a new drug to treat Alzheimer’s Disease has prompted a lot of hope. But also prompted three members of the FDA’s advisory committee to resign.  Aducanumab, marketed by Biogen and Eisai by the…

Never coy about running my mouth, and as someone involved in providing primary care to an underserved community through the Moss Clinic, I was pleased to be asked to participate in a panel discussion of problems with primary care access in “the time of COVID.”  A discussion that introduced me…

Life – or perhaps I should say death – was so much easier in the old days. As end-of-life researcher Joanne Lynn puts it, life threatening illness would “strike without warning and you get through it or you don’t.” Effective treatments were few. Doctors would often prescribe “remedies” like bloodletting,…

We news consuming public are an impressionable lot and are easily scared. The media talking heads are good at winding us up – by talking about how COVID-19 mutations may be more virulent or more transmissible than the original, for example. But, as with any medical issue, deciding how much…

You’re probably sick of reading about COVID-19, and all the ways it can stress you out. So instead let me bring to your attention a different healthcare issue for you to fret about.  An issue that epitomizes the way healthcare is being taken over by business entities, whose priority is…

I’m reaching for some cheesy double entendre about artwork on the walls supporting the art of medicine.  This because, once again, artwork on the walls of Sammy T’s is going to help us practice the art of medicine at the Moss Free Clinic where I am medical director. Moss is part of the “the…

In response to the nurse at the clinic I work at asking what to tell patients who are calling with concerns about getting vaccinated against COVID -19, I put this together. Safety Considerations with COVID-19 Vaccination Although the vaccine for COVID-19 has been produced in record time, it uses a…

I had a patient once. He thought the neighbors were pumping poison gas over the fence. Everyone just accepted that he was bat-shit crazy and didn’t take too much notice of him. Now claiming conspiracies seems have come a bit of a fashion. They are being spread at the highest…

There’s not many things I agree with Donald Trump about. But the vaccine being what will save us from the COVID pandemic is one. There is a catch, however. If enough people don’t get it, we won’t get herd immunity and it won’t save us. The Magic of Immunization Hope is vested…

This is what I wrote this month for Front Porch. The horrors . . . .er I mean the benefits of grandchildren. Linley has come to stay. And her being here is meant to be good for me. Let me explain.  Linley is my nine-week-old granddaughter. She is staying in…

This was the column I wrote for the Free Lance-Star on Sunday November 29th - except my opening paragraph said the guy thinking poison gas was being pumped over the fence by the neighbor was "bat-shit crazy." But I guess we have to respect the sensitivity of the FLS readers.…

I wrote this a few months back for the Fredericksburg news publication ' Front Porch' Every couple of months for the last couple of years, a group of mostly elderly Unitarians gather around the board room table in the Moncure Conway room at the Unitarian Fellowship building in Fredericksburg and…

This was last months column from The Free Lance-Star. At the risk of being a bit esoteric, for a variety of reasons I am focused on health and social inequities in the US. I’m talking about what the American Public Health Association defines as “a particular type of health difference that is…

This great comment form the Washington Post was forwarded to me by the co-manager of the end-of-life group we are running. It makes the point that we not only need to think differently about palliative care, but about dying. The Washington Post 9/8/2020 Health Perspective In pandemic era, the term…

Every couple of months for the last couple of years, a group of mostly elderly Unitarians gather around the board room table in the Moncure Conway room at the Unitarian Fellowship building in Fredericksburg and talk about how they’re going to end it all. Not how they are going to…

The American Gastroenterological Association is souring on the idea of probiotics. “The public assumptions about the benefits are not well founded” notes Dr. Grace Su, professor of gastroenterology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, lead author of new guidelines on probiotics just published by the AGA in the June…

I was talking to my good buddy from down the road who helps with a lot of yard work projects – who my wife, Paula, refers to as my “yard husband.” We were having a coffee at Dishman’s corner store, recovering from a grueling hour of work – laying down…

Sometimes you hear of a brilliant idea and are thinking “why isn’t everyone jumping on this?” When it’s an idea that could have a major impact on the spread of COVID-19, it’s even more frustrating that the powers-that-be aren’t implementing. I am talking about the Kinsa Health atypical illness surveillance.…

I took my life in my hands the other day - wanting to see how things are on the front lines of the COVID-19 epidemic.  To do this, I went and shadowed Grace Frye one of the nursing team on 2 South - the unit that has been repurposed from…