Opinion
“I go by thickness”
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
On car trips with our kids, we used to listen to comedy tapes. (Cassette tapes. Look them up.) One of our...
Opinion
Patient, heal thyself!
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
Octavio has prostate cancer. His prostate growth is large but localized.
“What do your doctors suggest?” I asked him.
“They sent me to...
Opinion
Tyranny by the numbers
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
Measurement without meaning is tyranny.
News
Fungal failure
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
The it's-not-a-fungus problem seems impervious to both education and even to daily observation as obvious as it is ineffective.
News
An iPledge Halloween
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
Jerry came to Boston to study; he'd finished 4 months of isotretinoin and needed one more.
News
Cancer and conference calls
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
Thursday was a big day in my ongoing quest to ask the question, “Why do people act that way?”
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News
Put the cash in the shoebox
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
Even when I was training back in the Pleistocene era, old Doc Greenberg was a throwback. During my pediatric residency, I accompanied him for a...
Opinion
Professional psychology
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
Expertise and psychology: Every profession needs both, including our own.
Opinion
The chief complaint
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
In medical school, they taught us to learn the patient’s chief complaint.
In dermatology the presenting complaint is on the outside, where...
Opinion
Damned documentation
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
Maybe little kids who used to dream of being firefighters will start to dream that they'll be file clerks with big red hats.
Opinion
Fake medical news: The black salve and the black arts
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
Three years ago, a frightened, middle-aged woman named Josie came to see me with ugly scarring all over her face.
Opinion
Absurdity
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
As the old comedian Henny Youngman might have said: Take my prior authorizations. Please!
Opinion
Why do people act that way?
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
You can try all you want, but you never really figure people out.Take Brendan. He spent a good few minutes chewing out my front desk staffer Linda...
Opinion
Facing the world
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
In a primal, visceral way, people who hide their faces are very hard to face.
News
Isotretinoin and shea butter
- Author:
- Alan Rockoff, MD
I am always amazed at people’s capacity to believe that there is a unique regimen just right for them.