Faculty Bibliography

There are plenty of novels, movies, and television series that have relied on medical humor. There are many doctors who laugh at their patients. One doctor's view on medical humor is presented

The pager, that appendage worn by important professionals, is discussed. Medical interns are prime users of pagers and the pagers are a symbol of the intern's availability for emergencies and non-emergencies

A physician acknowledges the commonality of asthma among children. The case of a five-year-old boy with a severe case of asthma is described to illustrate the seriousness of the condition for children; in children the respiratory airway is small, so the degree of compromise can be significant when the airway constricts

The hard won wisdom acquired during a doctor's internship is discussed. Now that the internship is over, the doctor knows better who's sick and who's well, when to call for help, and when there's nothing that can be done

A physician's personal account of dealing with teenage pregnancy patients is presented. Many teenage girls think a baby will solve their life, love them and make them grown-up

Well, there we were on the neurology consult team, a senior attending neurologist, a resident in the general pediatrics program who was doing a month of neurology and two medical students, one of them me. We got called down to the newborn nursery to do a neurological exam on a baby. So we marched in, a phalanx, with our stethoscopes dangling around our necks, our reflex hammers peeking from our pockets. We wrapped ourselves in sterile gowns and regrouped around the bassinet containing the baby in question, ready to bring all our different levels of expertise to bear on the problem. I looked down at the baby. I have a young child of my own, and my years as a mother have trained me in certain rapid diagnostic methods. I sniffed the air over the bassinet. 'This baby is poopy,' I announced to the assembled doctors. 'He needs to be changed.' No one acknowledged my statement, and I realized that in allowing my private life to intrude upon my hospital work, I had used the wrong vocabulary. I tried again. 'This baby has apparently had a bowel movement,' I said. 'Let me just put a clean diaper on him.'

A medical student discusses how part of the prestige of a profession is related to the tasks associated with that profession. He cites, for example, how a group of doctors refused to change a baby's diaper because the task jeopardized their dignity

A description is given of the difficulty pediatricians face when they care for terminally ill children. Some find that the only way they can deal with the situation is to not get to know anything about the child