Observations

On presence at the threshold — the 6am call, a patient's last room, a father's final breath, and what the body was saying long before anyone listened. A meditation on cancer, immunosuppression, early detection, and the questions medicine rarely asks in time.

Cardiovascular disease is not an event — it is a process decades in the making. On atherosclerosis, Lp(a), apoB, the cholesterol nuances nobody explains, and what actually changes the trajectory.

A patient opens MyChart and sees highlighted numbers — but not what they mean. A guide to the CBC, CMP, BMP, urinalysis, and urine culture: what the body is communicating, and how to be a full participant in that conversation.

A diabetes diagnosis tells you what you have. It almost never tells you what it means. On insulin resistance, the stages of progression, what the body signals before the crisis, the kitchen techniques nobody prescribes, and the CGM that should have come sooner.

A 90-year-old patient calls at 10pm — four days without a bowel movement, a hidden calendar, the dignity of shame. On the gut-brain axis, constipation as systemic failure, dysbiosis, leaky gut, vagus nerve stimulation, and what returns the system to balance.

The disease moves in. The system moves on. A clinical guide to the four types of dementia, protecting dignity, reading behaviors, the good days and the hard ones, caregiver burnout, and the role of an advocate who stays.

Mona sits outside the grocery store in January. The cultural response is a hashtag. On the distinction between mental health and mental illness, the cost of separation, what reform actually requires, and the workforce the next generation must build.

You are not a passive recipient of care. On the six clinical strategies every patient needs before every appointment, what to do when you are not heard, the role of technology, and the right to say no.