Doctors

The Best Medicine?

By Mikkael A. Sekeres, M.D. May 3, 2018

What’s Meaningful to Our Patients

At the age of 28, my patient was already a war-weary veteran of leukemia.

When his cancer was diagnosed, we treated him with a multi-drug cocktail of chemotherapy over months, first with more intensive regimens that sidelined him from being able to work, and then with milder medicines.

His leukemia came raging back, though, so we treated him again, this time with one of the new, expensive immunotherapies that has been approved recently by the Food and Drug Administration. These are not curative, but in his case eliminated enough of the leukemia to enable him to receive a bone-marrow transplant, which did have the potential of curing him. cont

A Good Appointment

Going to the doctor isn’t most people’s favorite activity. But it is part of staying healthy (the other major parts are what you eat and how much you exercise). So you may as well get the most out of it. As a doctor I often get asked by friends and family how to make the most of a medical visit. Here’s my advice, and it’s basically the same whether you are the patient, or a family member or a caregiver of the patient.  

In the Hospital, Resisting the Urge to Do More

By JESSICA NUTIK ZITTER, M.D. (New York Time)

There was absolutely no way around it. She was dying. I gave her a few hours at best, with maximum pedal to the metal intensive medical care. Paramedics had picked up this homeless woman after she collapsed under a bridge in Oakland, Calif. Her heart had completely stopped. She had died under that bridge. But the paramedics had somehow pulled her back, with a jump-start to her heart. And then brought her right to my service in the intensive care unit.

Cont

Jessica Nutik Zitter is featured in the upcoming Netflix documentary “Extremis.”

Would you like to sponsor this website? Contact us