In my sixteen years of family medicine, I think the most frustrating disease I treat is obesity. It’s frustrating because as a doctor I feel great compassion for these patients, trying so hard to lose weight, and yet I feel almost shameful that as a primary care physician I can’t offer much in terms of medicines to help.… Read the rest
Category Archives: Prevention
Diabetes: Healthy Lifestyle Choices Are Key
I’ve been a family doctor for fifteen years, and one of the more dramatic changes I’ve noticed is a big spike in the incidence of prediabetes and diabetes, in all age groups. I had worked in China for ten years until last summer, and all us family doctors at my Beijing clinic weren’t surprised at all with the 2013 paper published in JAMA confirming the frightening reality in China: more than half of all adults in China now are prediabetic.… Read the rest
Not Sleeping Well? Here’s My Advice.
This week, March 6 – 13, is National Sleep Awareness Week, so it’s a good time to review healthy sleep habits. I see a lot of adults and teens in my clinic who are chronically tired and have troubles sleeping — both falling asleep and staying asleep.… Read the rest
Rubber Ducky You’re The One — To Cause Diabetes and Cancer?
My boys are now both over two years old, but they still like the occasional chew on their toys, which are mostly made of plastic. Rubber duckies, Lego men, Brio trains — it’s still a ton of fun to put in their mouths if it makes mommy and daddy really mad.… Read the rest
Why I Became A Family Doctor
I am a family medicine doctor – but that is only a small part of who I am. Father, husband, photographer, social media guru, writer, singer — these are only a few of the many ways I define myself. But when I am on my deathbed, hopefully many decades from now, and looking back on my life, what will I list as my top accomplishments?… Read the rest
From Beijing to the Boonies: Moving Right Along
I am leaving Beijing.
After ten gloriously exhausting years in China, I, my wife and my two boys are saying goodbye to China — and hello again to the USA, for new adventures in a rural town in the Seattle area, surrounded by blueberry farms, pine forests, wrap-around water views, white-capped mountain ranges — and crystal clear skies, when it’s not raining.… Read the rest