I review Dr. Lisa Sanders’ book: Every Patient Tells a Story. She is an accomplished storyteller and academic. The decline and fall of the history and physical are illustrated through various “mysterious case studies”

I never thought twice about giving children their medications until my own son got ill. This mother’s lesson taught me a thing or two.

Baby Lia had seizures. Lia’s physicians could not release the culture and biases of Western medicine and Lia’s parents could not or would not compromise the belief system of the Hmong people. Anne Fadiman tells the story of truly good-hearted people from all sides who did everything they could to save Lia in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.

Difficult conversations with patients and families are one of the most challenging parts of our jobs. Sometimes the news is bad or sometimes we cannot give them the test, or med, or work excuse that they request. Docs, nurses, PA’s and NPs can all get better at this so there are #nodifficultconvos