Monthly Archives: July 2020

While all of us see patients who smoke in their 70s or 80s, due to their limited lifespan from COPD, DM, malignancy, etc., and their expressed wishes to continue tobacco, we keep our admonitions to a minimum. We accept our patient has become learned enough through life to make their own decisions and accept whatever […]

I’m embarrassed to say I don’t really know many Black people. Where I live, only about two percent of the population is African American. I have no close friends who are Black; no one I can ask about race and the current unrest in our society. But I want to learn. So, I reached out […]

A few years ago, I visited Mt. St. Helens and was astonished by nature’s power. After the volcano erupted, the summit vanished, and the mountain around it was destroyed under a thick blanket of ash. Now, it felt like the world around me had again changed just as quickly, but invisibly and with a more […]

Until recently, I was skeptical of how effective AA was as a treatment for alcohol abstinence. The reason for my skepticism was not anecdotal or based on preconceived beliefs; it was the evidence we had and what I knew from the available studies. The consensus was if it worked for you and you could stick […]

What doesn’t break us makes us stronger. Looking at Behfar Dianati, a confident-yet-soft-spoken, immaculately dressed hospitalist medical director at a major hospital in suburban Illinois, one would never imagine he had seen war up close. Growing up in the 1980s, he witnessed the Iran-Iraq War, losing his close relative and childhood friend. As a teenager, […]

Eight minutes and forty-six seconds can feel like a long time – especially kneeling. My knee ached, pressing into the hard surface of the plaza in front of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center’s entrance. My leg trembled, my back ached and my heart was heavy. About 50 people came out last month to a hospitalist-led […]