Medicine & Art (Not necessarily in that order)

  This video presentation was delivered in March 2023 in the Winter Talk series sponsored by NYC Urban Sketchers, hosted by Mark Leibowitz. Here I discuss how I have integrated medicine with art, and art with medicine, in the course of my career as a medical...

Elder Abuse on Film: A Geriatrician’s Viewpoint.

This past Halloween weekend I stayed home with my wife and binge watched old horror films that included the suspense thriller, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, released in 1962. This film follows the twisted relationship of two aging sisters. Blanche, played by Joan...

Avoiding The Plague: Medical Advice from the 14th Century.

The Black Death was a global epidemic of bubonic plague that ravaged the world of the Middle Ages, killing one third of all the people in Europe. In the 14th Century the esteemed medical faculty of Paris were commissioned to deliver their opinion to furnish...

Geriatric Medicine Recertification Completed

I am happy to announce that I passed the test.  I am referring to the geriatrics examination given by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM).  This means that I am recertified as a Board Certified Specialist in Geriatric Medicine. Recertification is required...

Art, Dementia, and Elder Abuse: The Sad Story of Peter Max

Back in high school I was a big fan of Peter Max.   His work was everywhere – on the cover of Life Magazine, on album covers for The Beatles, and on psychedelic day-glow posters at the head shop on Journal Square in Jersey City, the town where I grew up.  I remember...

Jean Martin Charcot: Urban Sketcher

I have always been interested in physicians who incorporated art into their life and practice, and one of them was Jean Martin Charcot.   A towering figure in the medical world of the 19th Century, Charcot was born in 1825 and finished medical school at age 23.  He...