I learned something today. Something really important. About how to stick to your guns, how use your gut. About what it really means to be a doctor. And, what’s funny is that I didn’t have to cure a man of cancer to learn this, but simply rid him of pain. A tech engineer, he hailed...Continue reading
Tag: Patient Centered Care
Making Mapping Matter
She approached the microphone slowly from the back of the room, appearing to float, wrapped in her colorful hijab. A doctor from Pakistan, she had some questions and a comment after hearing my talk. A Kind Interrogation “Your Sperm Mapping technique for azoospermic men” she stated softly, “is it done under just local anesthesia?” “Yes,” I responded....Continue reading
MicroTESE vs. FNA Mapping: Medieval or Modern?
Put two experts in a room and give each of them the same problem to solve. What you’ll find is that they typically use similar “knowledge structures” and “heuristic strategies” (i.e. organized and principled thinking) and then proceed to break the problem into smaller, more digestible ones to solve it. But, despite similar cognitive approaches, the solutions...Continue reading
Am I Enough?
The case of the month is an actual patient of The Turek Clinic. He hailed from the Middle East. He cut a striking figure, in a Laurence Olivier kind of way. As a young doctor in his final years of training as a heart surgeon, he had issues with his “stuff.” Quite a few. Six...Continue reading
Varicocele: Bringing Grown Men to their Knees
Name something utterly embedded in our lives, despite our tireless aversion to it. No one of sound mind seeks it out, although it commonly accompanies much of what we do. Yes, it’s pain. The Dutch Scratch And is there a particular pain that brings a man to his knees faster than scrotal pain? Nope. Just...Continue reading
Do My Du Mai
Is there anything as amusing as watching Dr. Paul Turek do a double take? Picture us, at the Integrative Fertility Symposium in Vancouver, sharing the podium for an East/West panel discussion on Men’s Reproductive Health, and, as often happens, the conversation takes an inevitable turn towards the male erection. We were discussing the difficulty men might...Continue reading
Smart Phone, Smart Home, SMARTmap
You’ve heard of smart homes. And I bet you own a smart phone. Both great examples of technology for better living. RememberThe Jetsons‘ smart home, complete with conveyor belts and Rosie the robot maid? And who can forget the large “brick” cell phonesof days past, with terrible reception and constantly drained batteries. Well, there’s also a...Continue reading
Does It Really Have to Be This Hard?
The case of the month is an actual patient of The Turek Clinic. He came into the office the day before I left town to lecture to endocrinologists from around the country about novel ways toincrease testosterone in men at their annual meeting in Nashville. The T Patient “Doc, I’m kinda down about things at this...Continue reading
East Meets West in Medicine
There I go again, a Western guy giving a lecture to an Eastern crowd. What team do I play on, you ask? In fact, I am honored to give a keynote at the First Integrative Fertility Symposium in Vancouver. Ok, call me a “swingman,” but the Easterners have a lot up their medical sleeves too....Continue reading