Writing a case study of a psychiatric patient may change the patient-physician dynamic even if the patient consents to be written about. And when the patient is a minor and consent must involve her parents, the process becomes even more complicated.

For a medical school admissions committee to consider social networking activities during the selection process without informing candidates would violate the principles of transparency and consistency and could lead to worthy applications being rejected.

Rereading The House of God prompts us to ask, first, do we take better care of house staff today and, second, if we do, have those changes resulted in better patient care?

Contemporary physician-poet John Stone said that writing poetry made him a better physician. His poems are lyrical, bittersweet, and compassionate.

In the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine’s foundations of clinical medicine seminar, The Call of Medicine, students practice reflection and receive feedback from mentors, peers, and the community.

Assigning community based on race suggests that phenotype reveals something consistent about biology that is equal in standing to factors like weight, dietary habits, smoking history, and whether or not you had rheumatic fever as a child.

Taking the time to retell patients' stories in medical record notes offers an opportunity to hone writing skills that will promote understanding of patient problems, improve the clarity of future notes, and, in some cases, help teach someone else.

As courts continue to define the balance between a First Amendment right of free speech, the public's right to know, and protection of the private, physicians must take care to protect patient privacy in any publishing endeavor.

There are two main approaches to telling patient stories in medical memoir. One is securing informed consent from the patients whose stories we tell; the other is de-identification. Each of these, however, creates new problems.

A physician blogging anonymously risks breaching patient confidentiality and misrepresenting the medical profession.