Bookend
10,000 house calls and counting
There’s only one reason to treat patients at home: They need your care.
The familiar, rhythmic tones interrupted my pre-dawn reverie that early-spring morning. I rolled out of bed and made one long step to the dresser, where the beeper lay among the contents of pockets emptied the night before. It was 4:15 a.m. and Peggy Hooper wanted me to make a house call.Ms. Hooper is a woman whose vague complaints have led us to try more than 15 prescription medicines over the years with very little measurable effect. I have treated her in the hospital, in the office and many times in her home. Going there was not a problem — I am a doctor who makes house calls — but, with 6 a.m. hospital rounds looming, there just wasn’t time.Since I began my career in medicine in the early 1980s, I have...
From Other Issues
Summer 1999
Our generations
When my oldest daughter, Lydia, was four years old, she announced that she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up.“Why...
Spring 1999
Face to face with Ray
Over the last four years, I have listened to hundreds of patient stories as a medical student taking histories. Not all...
Winter 1999
Can’t talk now
I met him in the emergency room. As a third-year student, I now performed many basic procedures on a daily basis but...
Summer 1998
The four humors weren't that funny
Laughter, they say, is the best medicine. But can laughter cure Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus? Let me put...
