In the last year, three people I know have been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. Each time, I've sat across from someone whose life has just shifted—a diagnosis that marks the beginning of a long, uncertain road with limited conventional treatment options. Each time, I've thought: what if we had known ten years ago?   Because here's what most people don't realize: Parkinson's doesn't begin with a tremor. The neurodegenerative process that leads to Parkinson's Disease starts approximately a...

the times are urgent; let us slow down -Bayo Akomolafe   Slowing down is about lingering in the places we are not used to. Seeking out new questions. Becoming accountable to more than what rests on the surface. Seeking roots. Slowing down is taking care of ghosts, hugging monsters, sharing silence, embracing the weird. If a humanist response to, say, the killing of whales or police violence urges us to do more and more to stop these phenomena, the call to slow down reminds us that we do not...

In January 2010, when a large-scale earthquake struck Haiti, I was still in my first years of clinical practice. Reports were coming out from the country, eventually estimating that 300,000 people died, making the earthquake's aftermath one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history. A team of physicians and EMT's from Portland, Oregon were heading down to volunteer in relief efforts and I was invited to join them—three weeks helping out in a country that had just been devastated....