Dr. Sam Lustgarten ⁽⁸⁾

I make it a habit not to lie to my son. Well, except for when it comes to Old Saint Nick. We celebrated Christmas in our fractionally Jewish, half-Persian household. Both my wife and I tiptoed into the holiday lore with our four-year-old. It’s the…

Every month, I’ll spend $1020 in premiums for health and dental insurance in 2026. For readers with an employer subsidizing your plan, you might think that only a portion of this $1020 will be my responsibility. But I have some sad news: all of that…

We’re on the precipice of vast interpersonal efficiencies where we quickly ascertain answers, solve our own problems, and avoid the discomfort of human-to-human interaction. We are engineering the end of relationships. I know this because I've lived it — both as a patient and provider…

In the unrelenting chase of what is ‘best,’ many of us can unknowingly allow our lives to become defined by materialism. —Jennifer Breheny Wallace (Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-and What We Can Do About It) With a zero-, one-, or two-year-old child, the…

Nowhere on planet earth is the love for sports teams greater than in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The city is home to three major professional teams: the Penguins, Pirates, and Steelers. They all share roughly the same colors and temperament of fans — black/gold and rabid, respectively.