“Not again . . . ” The mom with the troubled teen is late for their appointment . . . “Not again . . . ” The elderly widow needs […]
William Cayley
William Cayley: Thanks for what?
This has been quite a year . . . but then again, what year is not? Each passing year seems to bring a fresh crop of challenges, crises, obstacles, and […]
William Cayley: Social history on the back roads
Social context and relationships may shape what drives our patients, but sometimes the best way to ponder these is on a drive! En route to a home visit today, I […]
William Cayley: Overdiagnosis, uncertainty, and epistemology
Many thanks to Anita Jain for reporting on the “Overdiagnosis” session at the Cochrane Colloquium—I wish I could have been there. The suspicion that overdiagnosis (or at least over testing) […]
William Cayley: Social history consultations and patient time vs patient time
Who are you, what do you need, and how do I figure out how to care for you? Fundamentally, those are the questions that drive every encounter between a doctor […]
William Cayley: Thinking about Ebola from the sidelines
Recently I was staring at two dramatically different bits of “news” on my computer screen. Yet another story on the spreading Ebola outbreak was in one window, and the latest update […]
William Cayley: Facing uncertainty
The first case of Ebola in the United States, a cluster of cases of “acute neurologic illness with focal limb weakness of unknown etiology in children,” and ongoing concern over […]
William Cayley: My Chief Complaint
My chief complaint . . . is with the chief complaint. One of the hallowed concepts in medical history taking and documentation is the “chief complaint.” Supposedly a way to […]
William Cayley: Resilience, obstreperousness, and grit
Some people keep going, and going, and going . . . and some don’t. What makes the difference? I’m not sure we know, but I think it has something to […]
William Cayley: Awkward is when they need us
“I just hate this sort of thing.” When I overheard that at a recent funeral, as we waited in line to greet the bereaved family, I thought to myself, “How sad […]