Dear Provider
March 24, 2020
I read Dear Provider in a letter from a health care company. Provider is a fine word, and I’ve always felt proud to provide for my family—but the company doesn’t know guys from Jersey are sensitive.
Richard M. Berlin, MD
The Show Must Go On
February 25, 2020
A phone rings on stage like a flashback and we return to our fantasy that characters can die and revive, that the show must go on . . .
Psychiatrists Are Not the Retiring Kind
January 20, 2020
The past is prologue riding close behind. Give up your practice? And do what instead? Psychiatrists are not the retiring kind!
Not Guilty
December 12, 2019
Our daughter’s first day of Med School ten years ago, computer charged, a career choice . . .
Needlepoint Sampler
November 14, 2019
I imagine Emma on a winter night, an eight-year-old curled fireside in a wing chair, proving her skill with weeping willows...
Jolly Ranchers
October 11, 2019
They sulk and swear when I say, “Sorry, no Jollies,” tune out when I lecture about sugar, acid, and tooth decay— they’ve known sweetness and want more....
The Magistrates
September 13, 2019
My musician patient in a fetal curl, Tchaikovsky’s “Meditation” plays an endless loop against this climate controlled conspiracy of monitors and machines...
All the World’s Notes
August 2, 2019
The moment the maestro flicks his baton, an orchestra thunders and the pianist suffers a stroke. But everyone plays on...
Eye Contact
July 15, 2019
A ghostly glow frames the face of a man with nothing to hide...
Patient Interviewing 101
June 19, 2019
Always ask the name of their dog.
