Last month I solved the problem that is American healthcare, if only in my mind. This act of mental self-pleasuring produced a feeling of exhilaration, let’s call it the economist’s high, that was the complete opposite of my usual oncologist’s dread. Chasing after another high, I found another area of need: science funding.
It was an honor to contribute to the NIH Clinical Center Grand Rounds this week—a straightforward presentation of a fascinating case, followed by the brilliant Drs. Kreitman and Pastan discussing the anti-CD22 immunotoxin Moxetumomab.
If the unstated goal of these rotation post-mortems was to summarize what I had learned, a single post may not be enough for breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I knew that it was common, maybe overdiagnosed, possibly overtreated, and beating all other cancers for research funding by a vast margin …
The rotation is called malignant hematology, but between Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and everyone being away for ASH, it was a joke. The only memorable part were the first two weeks—the oncology consults at Georgetown—which reminded me that the NIH was indeed an ivory tower. This is …
Six weeks of anyhing will get tiresome near the end, doubly so if it involves taking a 6am train and not getting back home until 7. Combined inpatient/outpatient juggling twice a week didn’t help either, and neither did the high turnover1. Still, as inpatient rotations go, this …
I am not spiritual, or religious. Living in an atheist country that suddenly takes a turn towards militant Christian fundamentalism does that to you. I don’t believe in woo. I do believe that American doctors are overtreating their patients’ pain, and that American patients are too sensitized to it …