Last year, Kelly McEvers of NPR’s Embedded podcast introduced us to Joy. Something about Joy seems so ordinary, even familiar. She’s a certified hospital nurse, a mother of three kids, and a former Girl Scouts leader. She’s from Indiana, America’s heartland. She’s even close with her parents. And like many of us, she suffers from… Read more →
Tag: doctors
Lady Mellanby’s Dental Utopia
Nearly all of us have dealt with dental caries — better known as cavities — at some point in our lives. According to the World Health Organization, “the disease affects nearly 100% of the population in the majority of countries.”1 Although cavities are common, dentists agree that fluoride dosing, a comprehensive oral hygiene regimen, and… Read more →
The Pre-History of the Paleo Diet
Dr. Loren Cordain describes himself as the “world’s foremost authority on the evolutionary basis of diet and disease” and as “one of the world’s leading experts on the natural human diet of our Stone Age ancestors.” He is the self-proclaimed founder of the Paleo Diet Movement and champions a way of eating that mimics that… Read more →
Elimination Diets: Medical & Dietary Detective Work
After a lengthy, expensive, and invasive process, I received a diagnosis of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a hard to pronounce and fairly rare — but increasingly common — chronic allergic disorder. Hesitant to accept a lifelong diagnosis and the sick person’s role I imagined would come with it, I asked my physician what would happen if… Read more →
IUD: Easy as 1-2-3
“I should probably get an IUD, right?” These past couple of weeks I’ve heard this question more than ever, as my friends and I struggle to come to terms with an impending Trump presidency and the implications it could have for our personal and reproductive lives. As NPR reported earlier this week, women in my city… Read more →
Strange Pain, Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Womb: A Teacher’s Reflection on Bodies in History
In fall 2015, I taught a first-year writing class called “Womb Trouble.” I don’t know if it was a very good class. I was a first-time adjunct not quite out of grad school, tasked with teaching writing to freshmen barely five years younger than me, and I latched onto the text I knew best: the… Read more →
The Problem with Fat-Talk at the Pediatrician’s Office
“His BMI is on the high side of normal. See?” The pediatrician showed me a chart. “This is something we need to keep an eye on.” I had brought my younger child for his seven-year-old checkup, a pro forma ritual as far as I was concerned. Our pediatrics practice always asks my kids if they… Read more →
Trump’s Part in Centuries-Long History of Punishing Women and Doctors
In a recent campaign interview with Chris Matthews, presidential candidate Donald Drumpf contended “there has to be some form of punishment” for women seeking abortions, should the procedure be made illegal in the United States. In a rare moment, the candidate quickly retracted his statement, but not before his Republican opponents and pro-life advocates seized… Read more →
A Doctor, a Patient, a Rash, and Google
Don’t you hate it when you can’t get your doctor to agree with your own assessment of your symptoms? Never mind that she’s been to medical school and has years of experience. It’s MY body, and so I would like that fact to have as much weight in the diagnostic process. Alas, it does not…. Read more →
The International History of Women’s Medical Education: What Does Imperialism Have To Do With It?
For the past several years, this 1885 photograph of three medical students who attended the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) has been circulating around the Internet. The students pictured above are, from left to right, Anandibai Joshee, Keiko Okami, and Sabat Islambooly (whose name is misspelled in the original text accompanying the photograph). Because… Read more →