The Stories Doctors Tell

Physicians and Patients Stitch Together Narratives to Diagnose and Heal

The belly pain is so bad that Mrs. Alves*, a woman in her 40s, is worming uncomfortably on the ER stretcher. “I need an answer,” she says. I promise her that pain medicine is on the way. What I can’t promise her—despite countless tests and specialists’ opinions already on record—is the definitive answer. The diagnosis, the root cause of her symptoms, proves elusive. But her distress is real. And when there’s distress, there’s a story.

To be an emergency physician for nearly 30 years is be humbled again and again by …

Could a Tattoo Cure What Ails You? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Could a Tattoo Cure What Ails You?

Medicine Is an Art. Art, Too, Can Be Medicine

Tattoos and medicine may seem an unlikely pairing, but medical tattoos are nothing new. Religious tattoos of ancient Egyptians honored the gods and, possibly, directed divine healing to ailing body …

What Do We Owe Doctors and Nurses? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

What Do We Owe Doctors and Nurses?

The Virus Has Exposed the Weaknesses of American Healthcare; to Build a Stronger System We Need to Care for Caregivers

In late March, a mutual friend of ours called with a grim picture of the situation on the ground at the Queens hospital where he works. New York City had …

The Minnesota Invention That Rescued a Boy With a Hole in His Heart

In 1955, Two Researchers Created the Heart-Lung Machine That Would Save Millions of Children’s Lives

Stephen Joseph Brabeck was born in 1950 with a hole in his heart. To survive into adolescence would have been considered exceptionally fortunate at the time.

But Brabeck was lucky; …

How Cesarean Births Became a ‘Global Epidemic’

Reliance on New Obstetric Technology and Lawsuit-Averse Doctors Made Traditional Birth Seem More Risky Than C-Sections

Almost one in three births in the United States today is by cesarean section—a dramatic change from a century ago when physicians avoided the surgery whenever possible. Doctors remained so …