Scope is an award-winning medical blog produced by a team of writers at Stanford University School of Medicine.
When Alexis Roberts Keiner’s 9-week-old son died unexpectedly at day care in 2012, “we had to choose very quickly what kind of bereaved family we were going to be.” She shared her story with attendees of an emotional panel on grief in the digital age, which was led by ePatient advisor Liza Bernstein, at this weekend’s Stanford …Read More
On the final day of Stanford Medicine X, Alice Wong, founder and project coordinator of the Disability Visibility Project, moderated the poignant, at times humorous, and constructive panel discussion called “Interrogating Accessible Care and Patient Power.” Panel participants included Robin Wilson-Beattie, a disability and sexuality health educator and writer; Ryan Easterly, executive director of the WITH …Read More
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When Doug Lindsay, a 21-year-old college student, first began to feel sick, he received a diagnosis of mononucleosis and was told to stay home and rest for the summer. He did, but when classes resumed in the fall, Lindsay felt no better — in fact, he was feeling weaker and weaker and experiencing episodes when …Read More
Researchers have known for several decades that it can make a big difference whether you go to a local hospital or to a specialty cancer center for surgery. In fact, one 2001 study found a 10 percent gap in five-year survival between lung cancer patients who went to a high-volume cancer center and patients who …Read More
Ai-jen Poo and her grandmother play mahjong together. “That’s our thing,” she says, with a smile. “She lets me win once a year on my birthday.” Always ready with a laugh and a story, Poo’s 93-year-old grandmother’s mantra has been, “Laugh from your belly three times a day and you’ll have a healthy life.” Despite …Read More
We often hear about the “opioid crisis” and its devastating effects — more than 90 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose and about 2 million suffer from substance use disorders involving prescription opioids. But, argued panelists at a Stanford Medicine X session on the topic yesterday, the issues are often oversimplified in public …Read More
As part of a series of powerful talks at Stanford Medicine X this morning, Andrea Wilson took the stage to talk about what might be everyone’s least favorite subject. Death. Wilson’s 15-year-old sister, Adrienne (who Andrea raised from the age of eight), died in 2001 after a 147-day battle with liver cancer. As founding director of …Read More
Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the medical school, kicked off the second day of Stanford Medicine X by discussing some of today’s challenges in health care. After outlining work being done here at Stanford, including in the area of precision health, Minor emphasized the importance of solutions coming from a wide range of sources. “My challenge to …Read More
Becky Bach on
The Friday mid-afternoon session of Stanford Medicine X featured three stories, each meant to jolt attendees out of their everyday thoughts, to prompt them to consider the meaning of dignity and to reflect on their shared humanity — spurring them into action. First, from Abdalmajid Katranji, MD, a Michigan surgeon who has worked extensively in …Read More
It was a classic Medicine X moment: Patient-advocate and artist-in-residence Anthony Carbajal was on stage talking about his disease — “Having [it] really, really shows me that time and life is way too short” — when he began choking up. The audience, many of them patients and many more in tears themselves, immediately provided encouragement, giving him …Read More
