Hope is a Good Thing

Hope is a Good Thing

The Compassionate Scalpel Hope is a Good Thing In the classic movie, The Shawshank Redemption, Tim Robbins character, Andy Dufresne says, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” The dictionary definition of hope is desire with an...
Shared Decision Making

Shared Decision Making

Shared Decision Making The Burden of Everything Possible [original article] A gradual loss of weight brought him from the institution which had cared for him for decades.  A CT scan demonstrated the monstrous mass which enveloped a large portion of the left side of...
The Decision a Family Can’t Make

The Decision a Family Can’t Make

[original article] Just a minute before, I had been in surgery checking on the status of a patient who was undergoing an exploratory laparotomy.  She had been doing okay, but deteriorated relatively quickly that afternoon while still in the hospital recuperating from...