About
Description: A compilation of memoirs and opinion pieces on medicine and health care.
Occupation: Writer, medical resident on the side
Goal: To blog daily for one year, in order to provide insight into medical training, health care issues, and patient-physician interactions.
About: Idiopathic comes from the Greek words idios (one’s own) and pathos (suffering). It is a term used to describe medical conditions for which the cause is unknown: idiopathic pneumonia, idiopathic cardiomyopathy…and the list goes on. The term is often used in medicine because we can rarely decipher the exact cause of a person’s illness. In the 20th edition of Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, idiopathic was defined as “A high-flown term to conceal ignorance.” And thus the origin of this blog, which seeks to question established dogma in medical care and to reveal our uncertainty as physicians.
A Medical Resident's Journey 
I enjoy reading your blog!
I am a recent grad from a Canadian university. For my Masters thesis I completed a narrative analysis of blogs written by medical residents, including you. I am now in the process of writing a manuscript and would like permission to include excerpts from your blog as part of my analysis/discussion. Please contact me at spotteddog09@yahoo.ca so we can discuss this further. I really enjoyed reading your blog. Sincerely, KB.
Do you have an e-mail or Twitter account where we can send you questions? I love you blog, keep up the good work!
FOund your blog via a link posted by Nick Genes on his Tumblr. Must say I am loving it! Subscribed to the posts. Hope to read more! Cheers!
Awesome! Great writing, great voice. Thanks! Mary L. Brandt, MD (wellnessrounds.org)
You might be interested in another wonderful writer about medicine, surgeon Richard Selzer. I believe he is the only person to hold faculty positions both in an English Department and a Medical School at the same time. My favorite is “Letters to a Young Doctor”.
Quality writing, and more importantly, quality thinking about the steps of your training and what your patients teach you in large and small ways every day. I’m a physician writer as well, but thirty years beyond where you are, but looking back, regret not writing more as I went through what you are experiencing. Keep it up and I’ll happily follow along.
Emily Gibson http://briarcroft.wordpress.com