Perspective

This essay explores how diagnosing disease may be thought of in similar terms as interpreting modern art.

This article recalls the author’s mother’s death and the comfort a shared ritual provided the family while she died and suggests that a ritual, spiritual or otherwise, may ease the emotionally difficult experience of a loved one’s death.

This essay highlights the importance of the Beers Criteria and the challenges associated with prescribing medications to older patients.

This Perspective describes the physician’s role in caring for survivors of domestic abuse.

This article discusses the high frequency of mass shootings in the United States and outlines potential legislative solutions.

This essay suggests that clinicians should be aware of situational impediments to accurate physical examination findings.

This article discusses the importance of delivering bad medical news properly to patients and the increased difficulty caused by the modern electronic health record system.

This article describes the benefits of maintaining a long-term physician-patient relationship rather than the trend toward more temporary relationships.

This essay describes the author’s relationship with her dog and how caring for an animal relates to treating a person.

This essay discusses the use of “I” statements in communicating a prognosis to patients.

This Perspective describes a Vietnam veteran with posttraumatic stress disorder including a debilitating startle response refractory to treatment.

This Perspective uses an end-of-life care vignette to illustrate the need to clarify the meaning of the term comfort care.

This essay describes the author’s experiences with inappropriate behavior by patients and their families and proposes techniques to overcome this challenge when treating these patients.

This article explores the importance of goals of care discussions between clinicians and patients before setting a do-not-resuscitate order or administering CPR.

This article explores the experience of a physician advocate in communicating about end-of-life care and physician-assisted suicide with a patient with stage 4 lung cancer.

This Perspective discusses the approach of giving patients and families the opportunity for a meaningful talk before intubation, while patients are still able to communicate.

This Perspective compares the imperfect practice of medicine to the practice of magic and also draws lessons from the painting The Doctor by Luke Fildes.

This article discusses the difficult changes that patients may experience, even physicians who become patients.

In this Perspective, a young physician hears news of another physician’s suicide, prompting her to reflect on her own experience with depression as a medical student.

The article describes a physician’s experience with a family member with Alzheimer disease.