Here’s this week’s Sour Grapes; enjoy!
Columns
A look at What’sUpNewp’s latest columns.
Posted inColumns
Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about sending a 102-year-old home from rehab on a Friday
A 102-year-old man I know is likely to be sent home from rehab today. This 102-year-old man lives in another state. Until three weeks ago, he was driving, playing tennis, and living in his own home. Over the last few months, he developed leg swelling and then shortness of breath, likely the result of some heart […]
Posted inColumns
The wisdom we carry: Celebrating the voices of older adults by listening to their lived experiences
“I want to live in a world where we aren’t focused on what aging takes away from us, but rather what it gives to us,” Helen Hames, founder of Age Ambassador and a regular contributor to What’s Up Newp, told a standing-room-only, multi-generational audience last week. “As I began listening more deeply to the older […]
Posted inColumns
Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about Hantavirus and Ebola
Hantavirus on a ship, spreading person to person. Ebola spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Uganda. 13 cases of Hantavirus, with three deaths. Over a thousand known cases of Ebola, with 17 confirmed and about 240 suspected deaths. What’s the world coming to? Is this the Zombie Apocalypse? My first advice is to […]
Posted inColumns
Gerry Goldstein: Strength isn’t always what it seems
The pundits and TV talking heads have recently bandied about a relatively new term, “asymmetrical war.” As it suggests, this refers to a conflict in which one of the combatants is militarily far stronger than the other. The term was created in 1975 by the late political scientist Andrew J. R. Mack, whose seminal essay […]
Posted inArts & Culture
This Day in RI History: May 20, 1959 – Susan Cowsill is born
Happy Birthday to Newport’s own Susan Cowsill! The youngest member of the popular family band The Cowsills, who charmed TV audiences in the late 60’s, turns 65 on May 20th. Cowsill was born in Canton, Ohio in 1959, but moved to Newport as a child. She sang and danced on many Top 40 Cowsills hits […]
Posted inColumns
Dr. Micheal Fine: What’s crazy about firing the Commissioner of FDA
So the saga aka circus in health care in Washington continues. This week Marty Makary MD, the Commissioner of the FDA, resigned/was fired by RFK,Jr. and the Trump administration. I didn’t know Dr. Makary but I have colleagues who do. We once presented at the same conference and were in a room together, but I don’t […]
Posted inColumns
Gerry Goldstein: A pox on curses
I owe Jason Varitek a poem. Driven by the curse of a brain cramp the size of Fenway Park, I attributed his recent bad luck, in getting fired from his Red Sox coaching job, to another significant Sox catcher, Carlton Fisk. I wondered why, in a mass firing related to the sacking of Manager Alex […]
Posted inColumns
Tyler Bernadyn: For Bethany, Happy Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day carries a little more weight for me this year. On February 15th, Bethany and I welcomed our son Bowen into the world at Newport Hospital, and somewhere over the last few months, between the sleepless nights, bottles, diapers, and quiet moments holding him at 3 in the morning, I’ve gained a completely different […]
Posted inColumns
Raised in the Light: Celebrating Single Mothers and Grandmothers this Mother’s Day
Maya Angelou once wrote, “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane it its perfect power.” Talk about a powerful woman raising a powerful daughter! But it was actually Maya’s paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, that mostly raised Maya and her brother Bailey in Stamps, Arkansas after their parents’ divorce. In fact, it […]
Posted inColumns
Gerry Goldstein: These ‘smiths’ worked the forge of language
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with gold and silver light… I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams: I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. That poem,which so touchingly captures the vulnerability of love, is by […]
Posted inColumns
A Newport heiress’s gift to nature endures at Norman Bird Sanctuary
The Ocean State is rich with natural treasures, and many would agree that Aquidneck Island is one of its crown jewels. Among its brightest gems is the teardrop-shaped Norman Bird Sanctuary, which has welcomed residents and visitors of all ages for nearly a century. A Modern-Day Natural Gem Formed Over Millennia According to the organization’s […]
Posted inColumns
Dr. Michael Fine: What’s crazy about what insurance companies want – and a little about our politics
I was asked to look at a few bills about primary care that were presented this week for hearing in the legislature. One of these bills allows physicians to charge administrative or operational fees to support their overhead. Another allows physicians to charge optional fees for non-covered services. Another keeps insurers from requiring physicians to […]
Posted inEnvironment & Health
Beyond the Labels: How the Rhode Island state Ombudsman helps keep the person at the center of care
Person-centered care is in the headlines a lot. But before we had that language, care was often designed around tasks and diagnosis. Necessary, but incomplete. Over time, something important can get lost and a person’s identity can quietly be replaced by a label, shrinking the value of the individual and what matters to the person. […]
Posted inColumns
Gerry Goldstein: In Trump’s era, who’s the real crackpot?
Psychologically speaking, I am off-kilter. I suffer from a variety of maladies, including tyrannophobia, authoritophobia, politicophobia, and TAD. Coincidentally (or not), these conditions arose concurrently with the ascendance of His Royal Vileness, Donald J. Trump, to the highest office in our land. That’s where TAD –Trump Anxiety Disorder – comes in. Never before have I […]
Posted inColumns
Dr. Michael Fine: A new med school at URI is a crazy good opportunity
Some friends and colleagues from Brown University Health are arguing that Rhode Island doesn’t need a new medical school at URI – and that such a new medical school won’t help address Rhode Island’s primary care physician supply crisis. One part of that is true. If you dropped a medical school from outer space into […]