As a medical student nearly two decades ago, I remember how excited I was to begin my rotations on the wards. After two intense years in the classroom, I felt that I had a good fund of knowledge that I could finally apply in a clinical setting. Still, very soon after beginning my ward rotations, I noticed that while I was able to adequately manage my patients’ symptoms, I could ...
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Professions that heretofore enjoyed public admiration for pursuing noble work and reputedly insisting on the highest ethical standards have been exposed. The Catholic church could write a few blog posts on this. Police officers, journalists and even teachers have also shown us that they are members of the human species and are subject to its weaknesses and frailties.
The fallacy is to expect certain professions and professionals to be more irreproachable ...
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Advancing technology has allowed life to be simple. Nowadays, when you go shopping, you slide a credit card and voila, sold. Why does it seem though some things are getting more complicated?
Dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate is another name for Colace. We are forced to have two names for one drug: a brand name, and a generic. The pharmaceutical companies tell us they have patents mandating we live in their complicated world, ...
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To resuscitate or not to resuscitate, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to beat the heck out of a person on his or her way out in the hope of saving his or her one precious life, or to allow death to proceed at its own pace with expectation of a peaceful passing.
The United States has come a long way in the last 2 decades since 1991 when the ...
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For most of our patients, the student run homeless clinic is the last stop in a long, fruitless search for healthcare in the city of New Orleans. Recently, an insulin-dependent diabetic came in who had his insulin pump stolen, an unfortunate side-effect of homelessness. The physician prescribed a 150 dollar-per-month supply of insulin—far out of our price range—not knowing how much insulin costs. This was in addition to a sixty-dollar ...
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A few months ago marked the 20th anniversary of the launch of evidence based medicine (EBM). Now seems a good time for a retrospective. After twenty years what does EBM mean? Where has it taken us? What are the distortions and unintended consequences? You might be surprised.
What I intend to do is start with a little of the history of EBM, talk about the essential notion as originally conceived by ...
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As a third-year med student, I was doing an ER shift when the call came through our dispatch: 56-year-old man, status epilepticus, being flown in from Yosemite, 10 minutes out. I watched the residents snap into a semi-ordered chaos. Ten crucial minutes. Prepping the trauma bay. Anticipating acute management, who was going to do it, half-tying the yellow paper gowns. Anyone who had looked tired didn’t anymore.
We raced in the ...
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It is near impossible to escape the commanding news headlines: The horrific details that are emerging about the years of violent captivity of three women in a home in Ohio; The fifteen year old Californian teenager who was allegedly sexually assaulted by three boys and then committed suicide last September.
And, internationally, the tragic case of a 23 year old woman who was gang raped and beaten to ...
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You get to know people after a few days in paradise, sitting on lawn chairs in front of the pool. You talk about where you're from and your kids (if you have them). You might spout off about your job or friends. These are the pleasant conversations exchanged between vacationing strangers.
You may learn that one of them has taken ill: woken up perchance on a beautiful idyllic ...
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The Atlantic this week published a provocative article entitled “The Robot Will See You Now.” Using the supercomputer Watson as a starting point, the author explored the mind-bending possibilities of e-care. In this near future, so many aspects of medicine will be captured by automated technology that the magazine asked if “your doctor is becoming obsolete?”
The IT version of health includes continuous medical monitoring (i.e. your watch will ...
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"A comprehensive and extremely useful roadmap for doctors."
-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
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Past 6 Months
Dear lawmakers: This is what it’s like to be a doctor today
Matthew Moeller, MD | PhysicianWhat I’ve learned from saving physicians from suicide
Pamela Wible, MD | PhysicianIf I’m wrong about guns, can you please explain why?
Claire McCarthy, MD | PhysicianIs Chris Christie too obese to run for president?
Jeffrey Parks, MD | PhysicianPrimary care doctors may no longer be needed
Doug Olson, MD | PhysicianWalgreens moves into primary care, and it’s our own damn fault
Kevin Pho, MD | Kevin's Take