“Ultimately, I just started referring to this as ’patient math,‘ which works differently from regular math.”

I’m an award-winning writer and editor living in New York City, where I currently work at BuzzFeed as the Senior Lifestyle Editor.

"Oh, it’s always the classic lie about not smoking when the smell of cigarettes is practically burning my nose and eyes from the moment I walk in the room. 'My roommate smokes,' they say with nicotine-stained fingernails."

"Lol, so once I had a patient come in for an EGD (an upper endoscopy, where we take a camera and look at the inside of your esophagus, stomach, and the top of your small intestines). I was doing my pre-op thing and asked when the last time he had something to eat or drink. He said, 'Last night.' I saw that he was diabetic and on fast-acting insulin three times a day.

'Did you skip your insulin dose this morning?' I asked.

'Oh, don’t worry, I had a banana and peanut butter toast.”

'😳 So, you did eat today??? You just said you hadn’t eaten since last night. They told you yesterday on the phone not to eat after midnight.'

Finally, he admits that we did tell him not to eat and that, yes, eating with your insulin still counts as eating. He was very irritated that we had to cancel the procedure to look at his stomach because he had put food in his stomach."

"So I took his blood and, who would have guessed it, almost no endogenous testosterone and suppression of other related hormones. So I called him, told him what I found, and again asked if he used steroids. He kept saying no. I explained to him that he really should come clean if he did and that it wasn't a big deal; I just had to know. If not, I had no other option than to refer him to an endocrinologist. He kept denying up until the endocrinologist, who really called him out on his bullshit."