Perfect Chinese vegan lunch--followed by a perfect (unrelated) urgent care visit
(Imperial Chinese guardian lion in New Chinatown, Chicago. Photos by Howard Wolinsky.)
One naturopathic functional medicine doctor, one urologic oncologist, one urology resident, one endourologist, and one medical writer—me—walked into a Chinese vegan—or is that vegan Chinese restaurant—in Chicago’s New Chinatown.
Sounds like an opening to a joke. But it happened last Sunday during the American Urological Association meeting in Chicago.
(New Chinatown.)
We met in New Chinatown, Jake.
They all wanted to meet with me at AUA, so I invited them all to meet at Veggie House.
The group included Geo “Dr. Geo” Espinosa, a naturopathic functional medicine doctor at NYU; Minhaj Siddiqui, of UMaryland; Kevin Shee, MD, PhD, a researcher at UCSF, and David Schulsinger, MD., of Stony Brook.
The first three are prostate gurus. David, appropriately enough, the doc from Stony Brook, is a kidney stone maven.
Noting my prostate and recent kidney stone issues, the man from Stony Brook declared me “a urologist’s dream come true.” So true. But there’s more to me as you’ll see.
(Clockwise: Veggie House; Dr. Schulsinger, and the Chinatown gate, Jake,)
David, who as a student helped conduct the famed China Study, declared our meal healthy. (I highly recommend the Veggie House Soy Beef 香辣素牛肉Deep fried plant-based beef, bell pepper, celery, carrot, baby corn, onion, with chili garlic sauce. I Heart Tofu.)
(The rising price of Chinese herbal medicine.)
Meanwhile, I had to strain to hear. And things were getting worse.
It happens every spring. Not just MLB. But MLA—Major League Allergies.
Supposedly, this is the biggest year for tree pollen on record. Mold is also high on my list of allergens.
I cough. I sneeze. My nose drips. My eyes water like Chicago’s Buckingham Fountain.
This year, my hearing was affected. I could barely hear my three lunch companions on my first big outing since COVID-19 three years ago. The problem persisted.
So, today, I broke down and went to UChicago’s Urgent Care facility, a first for me.
I had a remarkable experience I wanted to share. It was with a board-certified family physician and medical director of the UChicago urgent care facility in Homewood, Illinois.
(Dr. Anwar Isabell, UChicago.)
First off, it was a breeze to get in at 9:45 a.m. No waiting.
The doctor greeted me with gratitude. A first. He actually thanked me for coming in. He even apologized for my wait—which was negligible.
Then, Dr. Isabell said he knew I had given my spiel to the nurse but wanted to hear it firsthand from me. Made sense. He managed to get more info than the nurse did.
Every step of the way, he carefully explained what he was doing and why.
At one point, he called up Google on a screen and enlarged an image showing the eustachian tubes, thin canals on each side of the face running from the upper throat to the back of the nose to the middle ear.
He suggested I might have a eustachian tube dysfunction based on my symptoms.
What a powerful use of technology by this young doctor, who trained at Howard University and Loyola University of Chicago.
After an ear exam, he changed his mind, concluding instead I had a problem with ear wax. He asked the nurse to give me an ear wash, another first.
Hallelujah. I could hear.
Upon his return, I complimented the doctor and asked where he learned his technique. He trained at Howard University in D.C. and Loyola University of Chicago. But he said learned his approach from interacting with patients and observing their needs. It was eye- and ear-opening.
It’s good to be writing something positive about patient-MD interactions.
Can you share some upbeat stories? We’ll get back to the downers soon enough.
Meanwhile, I’m going to share two links to articles I wrote for Medscape Medical News covering the American Urological Association meeting. I plan to write more on these topics in TheActiveSurveillor.com:
—First, the split between the American Urological Association and the European Association of Urologists on transperineal biopsies. AUA gives equal marks to transrectal vs. transperineal in its first statement on the topic, while EAU gives high grades to transperineal.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/991496#vp_1
—Second, patients are divided on whether to undergo transrectal or transperineal biopsies, and whether to have local or general anesthesia. A third method may have you in stitches—”laughing gas”—and may help keep more of us out of ORs: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/
Dr. Jonathan Epstein’s video and Q&A
By Howard Wolinsky
Jonathan Epstein, MD, of Johns Hopkins, is an international pathology rockstar.
He drew about 650 registrants to his April 29 videos from Active Surveillance Patients International’s event. Many just wanted to view the videos later. More than 250 patients attended the meeting.
So ASPI’s Bill Manning posted the videos STAT.
Here is the video from Active Surveillance 101 in biopsies and second opinions along with a Q&A with Dr. E.: https://aspatients.org/meeting/as-101-episode-5-second-opinions-and-biopsies/
The ActiveSurveillor.com will report more soon.
The full AS 101 series is available at https://aspatients.org/meeting/second-opinions-and-biopsies/.