Leana Wen, M.D.

Baltimore Health Commissioner Leana Wen had long worked to encourage breastfeeding. When she became a mother, she experienced just how challenging it could be.

Prenatal care costs more than $10,000 on average. Dr. Leana Wen wonders what choices she would make if she didn't have health insurance to cover that, and how those choices would affect her baby.

My 14-year-old patient grabbed my hand and told me that he was going to die.

Just seconds before, the nurse had wheeled him into the resuscitation room. His blood pressure and heart rate were more than twice the normal levels. He was pale, clammy and gasping for breath.

The nurses ...

Over the last week, Baltimore's unrest has captured the nation's attention. Images of burning cars, the sounds of angry protesters and then peace rallies have dominated the airwaves and headlines.

As the city's health commissioner, I heard other stories. I spoke with a 62-year-old woman who had a heart attack ...

Every doctor and nurse in our hospital's emergency room knew Jerome. He was one of our regulars.

In his 20s, he had back problems that led him to become addicted to prescription painkillers. That habit proved too expensive, and he switched to heroin.

Jerome used to come to the ...

When I was just beginning my third year as a medical student, I learned an important lesson about what matters most in health.

It was a typical summer afternoon in St. Louis, with the temperature and humidity both approaching 100. My patient was a woman in her 40s who was ...

When people hear that I'm an emergency physician, they often ask, "What's the craziest thing you've ever seen?"

TV shows frequently show ER doctors and nurses heroically saving people on the verge of death. Then there are news reports about people abusing the health care system by seeking emergency care ...

So you're in Ebola treatment clinic. Your body is covered head-to-toe in a plastic protective suit, a hood, goggles, gloves and rubber boots. Then, all of a sudden, your nose itches.

What should you do?

Or what happens if you need to pee? Or a fly infiltrates your goggles?

In ...

The woman was sitting on a gurney in the emergency room, and I was facing her, typing. I had just written about her abdominal pain when she posed a question I'd never been asked before: "May I take a look at what you're writing?"

At the time, I was a ...

Is diagnosis a lost art? Hear how to avoid dangerous tests, get the right diagnosis, and ask the important follow-up questions to avoid grave mistakes.

A 56-year-old man is having lunch with his wife at a seafood restaurant just outside Boston when he develops crushing chest pain. He refuses an ambulance, so the man's wife drives him to the ER.

What happens next says a lot about the difference that being a doctor or a ...

Something curious was happening in the emergency room. Eight patients had come in within minutes of each other. Almost instantly, the junior resident, two interns and a medical student signed up for all of the them – except for one.

Half an hour passed, then an hour. As the senior ...

It's just past midnight on a freezing Saturday night in Washington, D.C.

In the last hour, five ambulances have arrived at the emergency room where I work. A sixth pulls up.

The paramedics wheel out a stretcher carrying a man, 73, strapped to a hard board, a precaution in case ...

On the surface, the 39-year-old construction worker looks like any other patient with back pain. He came to the Washington, D.C., emergency room, where I work, in severe discomfort after moving heavy cinder blocks a few days before.

The pain gets worse with twisting and bending, but he has no ...

Last month, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology issued new guidelines that could double the number of people taking cholesterol-lowering drugs.

The organizations receive financial support from drug companies, and many of the experts who worked on the guidelines have industry ties.

The groups' ...

Dr. Leana Wen examines the doctor-patient relationship and argues that diagnosis, once the cornerstone of medicine, is becoming a lost art, with grave consequences. When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests, written with Joshua Kosowsky, uses real-life stories of bad diagnoses to show how active patient participation can prevent these mistakes. They offer follow-up questions patients can incorporate into every visit to the doctor’s to get the best medical care.