Tag: lung cancer
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The man shackled on 4 Northwest
Andria Albert Tucson, Arizona, United States Photo by Nikon Corporation on Unsplash. In one of the patient rooms tucked into the Northwest (NW) wing of the fourth floor of the hospital, there lay a particular man. Upon walking into his room, you would find nothing extraordinary about him. He is young, early thirties, with…
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Occupational lung malignancies: role of malachite
Tamas F. Molnar Katalin Aknai Hungary Jackson Pollock, Miners, ca. 1934-1938, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1966.68. To this very day, malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) remains a serious oncologic, public health, and industrial challenge, a fatal disease in which standard chemotherapy with or without radiotherapy has done little to increase…
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Monet’s illnesses: Beyond cataracts
Sally Metzler Chicago, Illinois, USA Fig. 1: Claude Monet, Apple Trees in Blossom, 1872, Union League Club of Chicago. Fig. 2: Claude Monet, The Japanese Footbridge, ca. 1922, Modern Museum of Art New York. No other artist in the world is more beloved than Claude Monet (1840-1926), the father of French Impressionism. From Shanghai…
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Shostakovich and his mysterious neurologic disease
For most of his life Dmitri Shostakovich lived under the shadow of Joseph Stalin, the brutal dictator of the Soviet Union. In 1936, Stalin and some members of the Politburo attended a performance of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Stalin did not like it. The next day, the opera was criticized, denounced, and ridiculed in…
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On your doctor’s orders
Alexandria Szalanczy Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States “More Doctors” Advertisment. Camel Cigarettes. 1946. Released and uploaded by the Food and Drug Association, https://www.flickr.com/photos/fdaphotos/7029895715. Long before physicians faced a nation crippled by an opioid crisis, their predecessors lived and worked in a nation dominated by cigarettes. By 1953, 47% of Americans smoked cigarettes, including half…
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A love story
Kate Rowland Chicago, Illinois, United States “Is that her partner in there with her?” Ankita, a second-year resident, and I had just finished seeing a new patient, Marian. Marian’s detailed problem list had required an equally detailed visit, and Ankita had addressed her urgent issues: uncontrolled diabetes, cirrhosis, and stage 3 congestive heart failure.…
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Three Visits
Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece Prelude She rings at the recommendation of a colleague who knows my interest in lung cancer and palliative care. “It is about my father, doctor.” I suggest that she brings me his films and tests for a briefing before I get to meet him. We arrange an appointment, and she…
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Humanism in medicine
Annie Yeh Louisiana, New Orleans, USA As medical students, we are taught the “art of medicine” and the importance of gathering a thorough patient history. “Ninety percent of your diagnosis comes from the history,” we are told. And to do so, we must establish a rapport with our patients. We enter the lives of…