Carol Westbrook MD, PhD is a Medical Oncologist with over 20 years of faculty experience and research at the University of Chicago, University of Illinois, and Boston University. She is a licensed medical oncologist, formerly at Geisinger Health Systems in Wilkes-Barre, PA. She has served on numerous federal advisory panels for cancer and genomics, and has authored over 100 scholarly articles, and three books , including Ask an Oncologist: Honest Answers to Difficult Questions about Cancer; To Your Health! The Beer Doctor on Good Beer, Good Times, and the Finer Things in Life; and Miss Victory, 1942. Now retired from clinical practice, she consults on medical-legal affairs, and is an author of the blog, Ask-an-Oncologist.com. Her email: carolwestbrook [at] me.com; twitter @Carolwestbrook1.
In November I placed a package containing a small sample of my blood into a UPS drop box. It is a fait accompli. I’m going to get my Genome Sequenced! No doubt you are wondering why I wanted to do this. The short answer — because I can. Why did I do this and what do I hope to learn? Read on.
by Carol A. Westbrook My husband loves big erections. Don't get me wrong, I'm not speaking here about Viagra, I'm talking about tall towers made of metal, long wires strung high in the sky, and tall antennas protruding from car roofs. He loves anything that broadcasts or receives those elusive radio waves, the bigger the…
by Carol A. Westbrook On Wednesday evenings, I volunteer at a free clinic. For a few hours I become a primary care doc in an urban setting, instead of a high-priced oncologist in a modern medical center. Our clinic, The Care and Concern Clinic, in Pittston, PA, opens weekly at 5:30 pm, and closes when…
by Carol A Westbrook The late Kingsley Amis, a noted authority on drink and a beer-lover himself, acknowledged that “the best wine is much better than the best beer,” but also pointed out that “wine is a lot of trouble, requiring energy and forethought.” He might be pleased today to find that beer, which requires…
by Carol A Westbrook In a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine1, Drs. Stavert and Lott used the tem, “The Bystander Effect,” to describe a new health care phenomenon, in which multiple physicians participate in the care of a patient, while none acknowledges primary responsibility for managing it. In their example, a…
by Carol A Westbrook Obesity has become an epidemic. Over 55% American adults are overweight. We have always regarded this as a self-imposed condition, blaming gluttony, lack of discipline, or a sedentary lifestyle. But as a number of recent books have pointed out, it is not how we eat, but what we eat that causes…
by Carol Westbrook The Golden Age of cancer research is here. The Human Genome program provided rapid sequencing tools and large databases to be mined, computers are larger and faster than ever, advances in equipment and robotics make high-throughput experiments possible, the info web permits quick literature searches…. and so on. Cancer patients are out…