Articles by Dr. Erik Steele
ERIK STEELE
Your family doctor is now a team
When it came to being your family doc, I tried darn hard to do it all. I delivered your babies, took care of you in the hospital, palpated your parts, and much more. If space aliens had flown out of your navel I would have tried to fix that problem ...
ERIK STEELE
My bum knee, Part 1
If I was your horse, I would understand why we were taking a walk toward that hole you recently dug in the south pasture. Not long after I wrote a column about my gimpy right shoulder, my right knee started whining for attention by hurting after I ran on it, ...
ERIK STEELE
Making columns out of boils
“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” — E. M. Forster “No thinking — that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is… to write, not to think!” — Sean ...
ERIK STEELE
The growing patient power to know what tests or treatments they don’t need
It turns out many American women have been taking half their clothes off, climbing up on exam tables and getting Pap smears they don’t need. That should happen less and less often as they and millions of other patients are progressively more able to compare the tests and treatments their ...
ERIK STEELE
Math and myth of guns and safety
Two weeks ago, a decorated American soldier, husband and father of young children slaughtered 17 Afghan wives, fathers and young children in their homes. In doing so, he killed the people he was supposed to protect with the gun he was supposed to use to protect them, something I am ...
ERIK STEELE
Dance with me
If Fred Astaire had danced the way I do he would have been known as Fred Asterisk, footnoted in the history of Hollywood as an actor with four left feet. A hooked trout flopping on the shore has more rhythm than I do. However, in part to beat my ego ...
ERIK STEELE
Whitney Houston’s last song
“So goodbye. Please don’t cry. We both know I’m not what you need.” From the Whitney Houston song “I Will Always Love You” The most important song of Whitney Houston’s life would be the one I think she might sing quietly to us from her grave if she could. It ...
ERIK STEELE
Bear witness to Medicaid misery
To be poor and without health insurance in America is to walk largely out of sight in the dark alleys of health care waiting to get mugged by the thugs of ill health, inadequate care and societal indifference. So the suffering that will result when thousands of Maine’s poorest residents ...
My gimpy shoulder, Part 1
I always get what I want, so when I wished I could be more like TR Reid (best-selling author, probably rich, bum right shoulder) I got what I asked for and now have a bum right shoulder. And it’s not just bum, but probably permanently bum unless I go see ...
ERIK STEELE
5 steps to shrink the state deficit without sacrificing Maine’s poorest and sickest
There is no problem in Maine too big to fit into a wood chipper. Got a state budget deficit to fix? No problem — put state Medicaid health insurance coverage for 60,000 people into the chipper, shred it and let those human chips fall where they may. There is a ...
DR. ERIK STEELE
With a house full of women again comes time to share and savor
If I look like I’m happily high these days, it’s because the wonderful women who are my daughters will both be home with us for Christmas. I’m thrilled with these and other signs that my house and heart are full again of the women I love most, including: • Their ...
ERIK STEELE
Believing the unbelievable about child sex abuse
The first person who wanted to have sex with me was my favorite high school teacher. He invited me to go sailing overnight on his boat, then tried to get into my bunk and shorts. At 17, I was old enough to successfully say, “No,” but young enough to be ...
ERIK STEELE
Top 10 health care myths to ignore, part one
This is the first of two articles about 10 important myths in the Great American Health Care Debate. There are sweet-sounding myths in the American odyssey to a viable health care system, siren songs of simple solutions that lure us onto the rocks of irrelevant debate. It’s time for us ...
Leave my prostate alone
Dear Guys (and the women who love us), I’ve recently decided to let the little lobe (my prostate) do the thinking for the big lobe (my brain). As a result, I am not going to get a popular blood test for prostate cancer called Prostate Specific Antigen. My brain, of ...
ERIK STEELE
Protect our children from the food fight
Among the things that will be lost if Americans shed the billions of extra pounds we are carrying around our waists are the billions of dollars our food industry makes selling us more food than we need. If we eat less food, we will buy less food, especially the highly ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Being cheap can make us smarter
Like it or not, the richest country on earth has to start being cheaper than truck stop coffee. With any luck, that will force us to be a lot smarter about how we spend our money. There’s a great example of this being hashed out right now in Maine, which ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Will physicians lead us through reform?
The young patient was dying right before our eyes, and most of us around him in the ER that day who had a clue as to what was wrong had the wrong clue. Amongst all of the frantic chaos was one cool head belonging to a family doc in training ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Medicare cost cutting not a job for Congress
If you want to see elected officials in Washington act like you asked them to lick a high-voltage subway rail, ask them to cut waste out of the $450 billion we spend every year in America on Medicare. Most scatter like chickens, which is no surprise, because they get fried ...
DR. ERIK STEELE
The Doc’s summer reading list
Because my recent colonoscopy was normal and I can now prove where my head is not, I have renewed confidence in the value of my advice to others. So I thought I would advise you on what to read this summer — just think of me as Dr. Oprah Winfrey. ...
DR. ERIK STEELE
The hospital patient’s safety checklist, part 2
(This is the second in a two-part series about a patient-driven checklist for safe hospital care. The first article discussed the rationale for such a checklist.) Many hospitals now routinely use checklists to force fastidious adherence to key safety steps that must be completed to ensure safe care of patients ...
Glenburn art teacher killed in Friday morning collision in Bangor
Harvard student asked to leave bar for ‘bad behavior,’ not drunkenness
LePage blasts teachers union for endorsing same-sex marriage question
Reporting crime
A people’s revolt in Bar Harbor
Old Town football coach steps down
Perakslis helps UMaine beat Albany; Binghamton next in America East tournament
Orono baseball shuts out archrival Old Town for ninth straight victory
Stony Brook knocks out UMaine to win America East tournament
Aroostook businessman expands company out of home with hit mobile app 7 Little Words
Former CEO of MaineToday Media Richard Connor sued over $250,000 in loans
Small idea launches major project in Hampden
Diversity predicts export success, MIT professor tells Maine audience
New, old methods combine to deter scrap metal thefts in Aroostook
Gary Allan talks with the BDN leading up to Bangor concert
Out of the ashes, Central Street’s garden grows
Mid Coast Actor’s Studio provides new forum for classic plays
Signs lead artist to opportunity
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