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Posted by Alex Lickerman  Print  Email to a friend  Photo: Hamed Saber The other day I found myself thinking about what would happen if as an adult I encountered some of the children who terrorized me when I was in 7th grade (an experience I wrote about in an earlier post, Breaking Free Of The Past), wondering if I’d be able to forgive them for what they did to me. I’d like to think I would, but the truth is I’m not sure. As a result, I found myself thinking about the nature of forgiveness and of the power and value of being able to forgive. 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 
Years ago, at an academic hospital on the West coast, a physician friend of mine named Terry (not his real name) discovered, quite by accident, that a mutual friend of ours named Sean (not his real name), also a physician, was moonlighting. While moonlighting wasn’t illegal, it was in violation of the contract they’d signed with their employer. Terry asked Sean to stop, but Sean refused, arguing that it was no big deal and that it had nothing to do with Terry. Terry told Sean that if he didn’t stop, he’d report him to their employer. Sean told Terry that if he did that their relationship was certain to be damaged. “We work together every day,” Sean argued. “We need to get along.”
Several days later, after confirming with Sean that he’d not stopped moonlighting, Terry reported him. Their employer told Sean he had to stop moonlighting immediately. Continue reading…
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