AAPA Calendar

Stay up-to-date on meetings with the AAPA Calendar

PA Job Link

The PA Job Link is provided by the American Academy of Physician Assistants and is a great asset for both job seekers and employers.

myCME Spotlight

mycme.com offers FREE CME for physician assistants and other health-care professionals on a wide variety of topics in print and video. Please visit mycme.com for this month's featured courses.

Humane Medicine

Looking through a glass darkly, then seeing face to face

April 17, 2012

How do you explain to a mother your concern that her child, whom you have seen repeatedly over years, might have an underlying genetic syndrome that will profoundly impact the rest of her life?
 

Midnight medicine: A time when difficult decisions must be made

February 28, 2012

Moral distress: when clinicians feel they cannot do the ethically appropriate thing. Midnight medicine: when difficult decisions must be made with no time for consultation and critique.
 

An unlikely afternoon hero: When being there is good enough

December 20, 2011

In the middle of a humdrum afternoon at the office, in between sobbing febrile toddlers and heartbroken adolescents, those patients whose suffering I can do little to alleviate, momentarily I become a hero to one family.
 

Transitional medicine: Patients
 who are just passing through

October 13, 2011

I watch them go—a new family I will most likely never see again. They've played by the rules, but got burned by the system. Lose your job, lose your health insurance, lose your doctor.
 

Growth and development: In 
pediatrics, everything starts small

August 24, 2011

Some things grow more quickly than others, and sometimes we have the chance to weed the garden before it's too late.
 

Generational medicine: The year of the great-grandmother

June 15, 2011

I watch them walk down the hallway, this woman I have known as a mother, now as a grandmother, whose grandson still has a great grandmother of his own.
 

The art of medicine: Having faith in the seeds we plant

April 13, 2011

A visit from an 8-year-old patient reminds the author that in medicine as in the natural world, every seed germinates in its own time.
 

Goethe's Erlköenig: A poetic 
drama at the close of day

February 09, 2011

On a day in late winter, an acutely ill 6-week-old infant reminds the author of a famous poem—and leaves him hoping for a different outcome.
 

Heartache: When the diagnosis is just a click away

December 15, 2010

After a trying week, a young patient with puzzling heart pain reminds this clinician to breathe easy—and let his own chest discomfort subside.
 

Out of season: Coping with 
an adolescent in crisis

October 20, 2010

An exchange with a troublesome adolescent girl incites contemplation about whether the teenage years are always a time for blooming.
 
 Subscribe to the RSS for this page  [view all our RSS feeds here]

© 2012 American Academy of Physician Assistants and Haymarket Media, Inc.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in any form without prior authorization.

Your use of this website constitutes acceptance of Haymarket Media's Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions