Butterfly Arose

In the last episode I talked about the experiences of four people; three who are living after treatment for cancer, and one who recovered from debilitating symptoms that were at first misdiagnosed as dementia. All four stories raised important questions about the role of patients in their own recovery from medical issues. We began to look at what patients are saying they need from themselves, and from the medical system for everyone to receive high quality care. In this episode we look at several more stories from the patient perspective to see what we can learn about our complex system of health care.

This episode of Butterfly Arose continues learning from Doctor Danielle Ofri in her book When We Do Harm, A Doctor Confronts Medical Error. Where the last episode looked at procedural errors, this one looks at cognitive errors, the harm they can cause and what, if anything, can be done about them. As always, you can find links to books and articles on the sections of my website that refer to either podcast.

Using the case of David Reimer, the boy who was raised as a girl, as a learning experience. Why did Dr. Money make this mistake, and what does it tells us about improving medical care?

In this episode I talk about the case of a person whose life got caught up in a confluence of medical mistakes and errors that took place in a cultural space where sex and gender are surrounded by outdated belief systems.

Learnings from the memoir Nobody Needs to Know by Pidgeon Pagonis.

In this episode I talk about Frans de Waals research into sex and sexuality among nonhuman animals to help us understand ourselves.

The first of a series of episodes on biology and gender. Where does our gender identity come from and what is it?