The Endless Quest for Weight-Loss Pills

SAUSALITO, CA (ASRN.ORG) -- One day, a woman in her early 40s came for an appointment. She asked me to prescribe fen-phen, a weight-loss pill that combined the drugs fenfluramine and phentermine and was being heavily marketed at the time. 

Impatience to Get Thin Sends Some to Canada

SAUSALITO, CA (ASRN.ORG) -- Tammy Kwarciak, a 44-year-old nurse whose weight had been creeping up for years, was determined to lose 50 pounds. So in February, she drove from her home in Port Huron, Mich., across the border into Canada and had a small balloon-like device inserted into her stomach.

When Nurses Make Mistakes

 SAUSALITO, CA (ASRN.ORG) -- This year, a Seattle nurse named Kim Hiatt committed suicide. Ms. Hiatt’s death came nearly seven months after she had given an unintended overdose to an infant heart patient, a medical error that was said to have contributed to the child’s death days later.

Hell-Bent on Natural Pregnancy

SAUSALITO, CA (ASRN.ORG) -- I’m not exactly the woo-woo type. I eat meat, shave my armpits, and Birkenstocks don’t fit my feet. But the year I turned 35, I went a little nuts in the New Age department. My husband, Ron, and I had crossed the three-year mark of trying to conceive. So far, our fertility journey had amounted to one miscarriage and countless trips to the doctor. Tests all showed the same thing: Ron had Super Sperm; I had a luteal phase defect. Every month, my period started too early and lasted too long. It’s difficult for a fertilized egg to implant in a uterus that’s constantly shedding its lining. 

Finding My Mother Again

SAUSALITO, CA (ASRN.ORG) -- In the 15 years since my mother has been gone, she has become a mythical figure in my life. She was a woman to be revered, but also one so complicated and so different from me that I fear I’ll never stop struggling to make sense of her and to accept myself within the context of her shadow.