The World of Ideas
Dr. Kunz has posted extensive blogs in the past and written extensively on health, wellness, the healthcare system, and the mind-body connection. We will be rolling out these blogs and posts, old ones and new ones. Be prepared. Expect the unexpected. Serious, funny, deep, silly, controversial. Dr. K likes to think. And to have fun at the same time. Stay tuned.
Word Picture: What’s a “Hernia”?
So, what is a “hernia”?
It’s actually more something that a “thing” does rather than the thing itself. Briefly, a hernia is when one “thing” or structure in the body moves, slides, bulges, protrudes, or otherwise escapes its normal anatomical confines and encroaches on another space.
Word Picture: What’s a “Pinched Nerve”?
Often, absent a physical model to show a person, I find myself straining to give a verbal description to the suffering patient, so that he or she might better understand that lancinating electrical shock that radiates down their arm or leg. This usually degenerates into a quasi-artistic and ersatz modern-dance-physical-demonstration of the vertebral column.
Who Are My Most Memorable Characters? (patients)
Each morning I’d make my rounds in the ICU, and, coming to her room, would expect to find Miss Hattie’s bed empty. But she hung on, the heavy aroma of the grave still oppressive. It constricted you from all sides.
What’s the “Grandpa Moment”?
I can’t prove the existence of love by scientific experiments, but tell me of any greater force on earth for bodily recovery, reconciliation, sacrifice, bravery, and physical strength. And no one can deny that a soft touch or the healing presence of a caring person has physical therapeutic power to a sick one. The philosophical materialist who denies the existence of anything other than the tangible, observable, and quantifiable realm merely says such a phenomenon is “psychological”.
Am I Ready to Die?
Those who see me and know me in the office know that my focus has always been on prevention and wellness. And I try to practice what I preach. But can I also show them by example how to die or to deal with disabling or painful illness? The life of the body, no matter how hard one works at it, will end.
Who Are My Most Memorable Characters? (Doctors)
Dr. Banov was, perhaps, the kindest, most astute, most compassionate doctor and teacher of the art of “beside manner” that I have ever met. If I haven’t said this before in a previous blog, I must now tell you another term for “bedside manner” that I am fond of using. It’s that ability to make people feel better by just being with them. I would like to take credit now for coining the term: “therapeutic presence”. Dr. Banov had it.
Author / Physician
David W. Kunz, M.D.
Family Medicine Physician & Medical Aesthetic Specialist