It was Christmas Eve forty years ago. I tucked my baby girl into her crib, placed one last kiss on her downy head, and backed quietly out of the room. I drank a coffee, kissed my husband, and grabbed my medical bag. Outside it was snowing gently in those big fluffy flakes that so often decorate Christmas cards. I got… Read More »House-call horrors: It’s Christmas at the biker bar too
The people who know me, know that teaching doctor-patient communication is my jam. As an author of the Communication Skills Role in both CanMeds 2015 and CanMeds FM 2017, I have thought long and hard about what makes a good communicator in medicine and how to teach it. I have an obsession with direct observation and I insist that the… Read More »Communication skills: I know ‘em when I see ‘em
So up front, I want to say that many names and details have been changed in this story, but sadly, mostly not to protect the innocent. One of the joys of practice when I still did full-service family medicine was to have whole families under my care. I loved seeing parents and children, knowing the grandparents, aunties and uncles. It… Read More »Conflicts of Interest
I come from good people. My childhood home was always open. Friends, family, random strangers my father met on the street would drop in for dinner or stay overnight. The pattern was always the same. My father would be warm, welcoming and curious about who the people were. He was dedicated to helping them, but my mother would make things… Read More »What I learned at my mother’s knee before, during and after abortion reform
“Don’t park in the back; park in the Maxi’s lot,” I text my daughter from the restaurant table. “There you are. I can see you through the window. Look a bit to the left!” How many texts like this have I sent? How often have I sent clarifications, instructions, amendments to plans on the fly? I wonder how we ever… Read More »You used to buzz me on my pager
There is an article in the New York Times about one of my favorite paintings, Vermeer’s Young Woman Reading a Letter by an Open Window. In this painting, a sweet-faced young woman stands at an open window reading a letter with a gentle blush on her cheeks. The colours, the balance of shapes, and the shadows all create a beautiful and harmonious… Read More »Learning to see – portraits and patients
An election is on the horizon. Politicians across the country of every party are trying to appeal to their constituents by promising to improve the healthcare system. They are paraphrasing Freud and declaring to their aides: “Oh God, what do doctors want!” as doctors, burnt out by the COVID crisis, are retiring early or leaving clinical medicine for less stressful… Read More »Dear Politicians: This is What Doctors Want
My first practice was in a tough neighbourhood. Now rapidly gentrifying with many fancy restaurants and condos, it was a place where many of the inhabitants were on welfare, and a good number were involved in crime. In those days, I was a bit of a naïve young woman, my French was not fluent, and in my English grade school,… Read More »I’ll walk you to your car
Hello, my name is Perle Feldman, and I am a birth junkie. A few weeks ago, I was working on a meditation technique. First, the therapist asked me to visualize a happy moment, a time when I felt calm, in control and comfortable. I then had an image of my last delivery. Many people find joy between the legs of… Read More »My Happy Place
Every July, as a family medicine teacher, I greet the year with a combination of excitement, anticipation and dread. Who will they be, these young doctors who are my charges and companions for the next two years? I haven’t met this year’s cohort yet, and none of them are students that I remember teaching during their clerkships. Yet, I stare… Read More »July: Joy and Dread