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Posted by Alex Lickerman  Print  Email to a friend  Photo: pedrosimones7 The other day I was out walking my son in his stroller (my now constant occupation) when a homeless woman approached me asking for money. I’d seen her before in the neighborhood many times, including behind our condominium using drugs. I turned down her request and continued walking, to my chagrin, as if the wind had blown a newspaper against my leg and I’d kicked it away without any thought.
I used to get angry at strangers who asked me for money, projecting onto to them a rage I actually felt toward myself for having such a difficult time turning them down. Then I learned to set boundaries comfortably and my anger gave way to inconsistency: I’d sometimes acquiesce to requests for money and sometimes not, the likelihood of one or the other depending randomly on my mood, how much I believed their story or how much it entertained me, or my belief about what it meant to be compassionate at the time. Continue reading…
Posted by Alex Lickerman Print Email to a friend  Photo: peteSwede My patient smiled a toothless grin and told me, “I feel fine, doc.” But he was far from it. His liver enzymes had risen into the thousands, his skin was a pasty yellow I didn’t need the benefit of sunlight to see, and his albumin (a protein whose level indicates the liver’s functional capacity as well as a patient’s degree of malnutrition) had fallen far too low. Further, he’d been admitted to the hospital with a chief complaint of vomiting blood, which turned out to have been caused by esophageal varices, a potentially life-threatening condition seen in end-stage alcoholics. Continue reading…
Posted by Alex Lickerman Print Email to a friend  Photo: Xurble In a previous post, Evil Triumphs When Good People Do Nothing, I argued that justice exists in the world only because good people stand up against injustice and that we should fight small injustices with as much fervor as we fight large ones. Several commenters, however, suggested the anecdote I used at the beginning of the post was a poor example of a clear-cut injustice. I acknowledged that determining what’s right and wrong is a complex business but didn’t discuss how I approach moral calculations in my medical practice or in my personal life. Most of us aren’t confronted with small moral conundrums, much less large ones, on a daily basis, but both come around sometimes (and for me as a doctor far more often than I’d like). How can we figure out in the real world what’s right and wrong, and more importantly, why should we care?
At the risk of inviting even more controversy and criticism (and I’m sure I will), I thought I’d share my ideas about how to answer these questions. Continue reading…
Posted by Alex Lickerman Print Email to a friend  Photo: five2b4u My heart began pounding as I listened to the sound of the dial tone in my ear. After three rings a woman answered groggily and uncertainly, “H-hello?”
“Mrs. Peterson?” I asked. My voice trembled slightly. It was 2 a.m. and I’d awakened her from what I imagined had been a troubled sleep.
“Yes?”
“This is Dr. Lickerman. I’m calling from the hospital.” I paused. “I’m calling about your husband.”
There was silence. Then a breathless, “Yes?” Continue reading…
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