Hubris

“I think he’s just anxious about it,” the medical student told me a few sentences into the presentation.  His patient had had a spontaneous pneumothorax, a leak of air between the lung and chest wall, a few years ago, and now he had some uncomfortable feeling and was worried about a recurrence.  I hadn’t heard the full story … Continue reading

The Stories We Tell

Stories are at the heart of who we are as people. In medicine, patients tell their doctors the story of how their symptoms started and how they have progressed. They tell the story of how they feel now. We document this story in a note from the encounter that we call the “history and physical.” … Continue reading