• The Murder Building

    When I visited a patient in my caseload that lived in an “unsafe” part of the city, I went in the morning. Right after the pimps and drug dealers had called it a night and before the shop keepers pulled up the bars over the store windows and the women came out to sweep the……

  • Unsolved Mystery?

    This happened long ago. I worked for a hospital-based home care program. We, nurse practitioners, received referrals from physicians who had exhausted all options to prolong the patients’ life. We visited the patient in his home and helped the family care for him until death. Traditional hospice services were not an option as yet. My……

  • Not Guilty

    On my last post, I speculated that Betty, the wife of one of my patients, Mr. G, might have been plotting to do him in. Now my friend, co-worker at the time, Jane Van De Velde, writes that Mr. G was admitted to the hospital because his hemoglobin was very low and he died there.……

  • There Are Some Patients We Never Forget

    When you have been a nurse as long as I have there are patients who take residence in your memories and resurface frequently. They could almost be family except they have a short history in your life. What they were like before or after you knew them usually remains a mystery. Mr. G was a……

  • Writing the Book

    I’m writing a book. I’ve been writing this book for the past five years. Longer if you count the time I worked with a friend to co-author a book of nursing tales until I knew I had to take this journey alone. Add the amount of time it took for the book to take form……

  • Getting Older

    I promptly lost my first Medicare card. When I opened the envelope and saw the red, white and blue border, I was reminded of the elderly I cared for over twenty years ago when I was a gerontological nurse practitioner. I ran a not-for-profit clinic in a converted one-bedroom apartment on the tenth floor of……