“It’s like winning Powerball.” For months, there has been a steady trickle of questions from my patients, asking for my opinion about the new vaccines being developed to prevent COVID-19. More to the point, they want to know if they should be vaccinated. After some fits and starts, I finally struck upon a pat answer…
On April 5, 1950, a small group of scientists met in Silver Spring, Md., to talk about geophysics. I know this is not the most riveting way to start, but if you stick with me, I promise the story will get much more interesting. This group of scientists met to discuss all that was still…
It came down to the toss of a coin. David Yancey represented the Newport News district in the Virginia House of Delegates beginning in 2011. In 2017, he had a challenger. Shelly Simonds, a member of the local school board, decided to run for the privilege of representing the 94th District. The final tally: 11,608…
I should have paid more attention in medical school. If I had, I might have remembered enough about basic pathophysiology to know why everyone was suddenly pulling their patients off of lisinopril. For those of you who need a quick primer: When the pressure in the renal artery drops, the kidney secretes renin. Working together,…
My fellow was laughing at me. By itself, I don’t think this was an unusual occurrence. I am quite certain that my fellows laugh at me all the time. That said, when such laughter is called for, I am accustomed to a certain protocol being observed. In general, I expect the laughter to be contained,…
“No!” she screamed. My niece just finished her first semester as a freshman at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. If the institution sounds familiar to you, it may be because you remember a particularly famous graduate—William Windsor, who sometimes goes by his formal titles: Duke of Cambridge and heir to the British throne….
On Dec. 30, 2019, an ophthalmologist named Li Wenliang notified his colleagues about an illness that was reminiscent of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in a city in the Hubei province of China called Wuhan. As an ophthalmologist, this was not directly relevant to his practice; he merely wanted to warn colleagues that they might…
She wanted me to call in an antibiotic. My sister, a lawyer, often tells me how the ethics of her profession govern even her extra-professional acts. She feels that when she was sworn into the New York State bar, she lost the freedom to bend the truth. She would never, for example, attempt to smuggle…
“Greetings of the day!” My email account used to be flooded by these cheerful salutations, referring to me as an esteemed colleague or a thought leader. I have to admit: at first, I enjoyed receiving these messages. Normally, when I log into my email account, I’m greeted by messages—punctuated by red, capital letters—that announce dire…
I nodded, gravely. I was recently privileged to attend a symposium on eosinophils. I realize that this sounds odd. And it was odd, mainly because I’m not an eosinophil expert. Still, they were in need of someone who knew something about eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis, so I managed to sneak in through the back door….