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

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.

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.

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.

One way of thinking about whether medical school candidates' personalities should influence admission is to ask the question, "Would you want this person to care for one of your loved ones?"

Even if a placebo is safe, it should not be employed as a way of mollifying patients or glossing over underlying causes of illness.

Respecting patient autonomy sometimes entails adult patients' making what those in allopathic medicine view as poor decisions, but compassionate patient communication can leave the door open for patients to change their minds.

Discussing CAM offers an opportunity to study the development of basic medical science that refuted vitalism, homeopathy, humoral theory, miasma theory, the doctrine of signatures, and other prescientific myths that persist today.

You are not just the rural patient’s doctor, you are the doctor for the football team, a friend, and perhaps a relative; you speak on health at local schools and are expected to attend fundraisers.

Physicians who choose rural practice are called upon to deliver care that they have limited experience with, most notably in emergency situations when they are the most skilled people around.