My son has been accepted into medical school, we learned last week, and I must say I’m about as happy a mother and a physician as you could find anywhere. For everything that’s wrong with the American healthcare system today, medicine is a wonderful profession and it’s still the greatest honor in the world for a patient to have faith in your skills and care.
It will be interesting to see ...
Read more...
New research just out in the journal Psychology and Aging says pessimists live longer and healthier lives. If this is true, then contemplating the future of anesthesiology ought to make us immortal, because our professional prospects don’t look bright. As we teach residents to do what we’ve always done, shouldn’t we ask ourselves honestly if we’re training them for a future that doesn’t exist?
Especially here in California, it seems ...
Read more...
It's a nightmare that doesn't end for the family of 24-year-old Marek Lapinski, who suffered cardiac arrest recently during the removal of two wisdom teeth in a southern California oral surgery clinic. The former college football player had no known health problems prior to the surgery, but died three days later in a hospital intensive care unit.
While the circumstances of Mr. Lapinski's death are still being investigated, the case highlights ...
Read more...
Don’t be surprised if patients start asking more questions than usual about awareness under anesthesia. We can all thank a recent article in The Atlantic magazine, with a large-print headline on the cover: “Awake Under the Knife”. Written by a UCSF medical student in preclinical training, the article not only assures everyone that awareness can happen, but takes pains to point out that anesthesiologists can’t always prevent it.
The ...
Read more...
When you walked into the voting booth on Tuesday, November 6, did you do so with a feeling of calm certainty that the man who would get your vote for President was unquestionably the best choice, or even the only possible choice? Did you feel confident that your candidate’s political party fully supports your political views as well as your personal values?
For many physicians, I suspect that the answer to ...
Read more...
In my hospital’s preoperative area, upright on her bed, sat an unhappy middle-aged lady who needed an operation to treat complications from her previous bariatric surgery. She hadn't lost weight and clearly was feeling discouraged about practically everything. She was physically uncomfortable, couldn't even keep down her own saliva because her lower esophagus was obstructed, and was in tears.
As her anesthesiologist, ...
Read more...
Really, sir. What were you thinking?
I’m talking to you—the anesthesia provider (I hate to think that you might be an anesthesiologist) who allowed himself to be videotaped while a patient injected his own induction dose of propofol. Most people know something about propofol even if they aren’t in the anesthesia business–that’s the medication that Dr. Conrad Murray gave Michael Jackson to everyone’s sorrow.
I would insert the link here, but the ...
Read more...
Unless you’ve lately returned from a retreat at a remote Cistercian abbey, if you’re interested at all in women’s issues you’ve probably read Anne-Marie Slaughter’s recent article in the Atlantic, "Why Women Still Can’t Have It All." The author eloquently tells how she left her dream job in the State Department as the first woman director of policy planning in order to return to her husband, her two ...
Read more...
We’ve come to a sorry pass in American medicine when physicians are willing to spend a lot of money to attend conferences—not to learn how to become better physicians, but to find a way out of the pit of clinical practice.
Few of us have the charisma (or chutzpah) to make a living in medical show business, like Sanjay Gupta or Mehmet Oz. But apparently any physician today can be clever ...
Read more...
One morning recently, I found another physician standing morosely at one of the mobile computer terminals we refer to as “cows”—computers on wheels—that are everywhere now in our hospital. I asked what was the matter. “Oh nothing, really,” she said. “It’s just that I don’t feel I know the patients as well as I used to.”
I knew exactly what she meant. Things are different now that we have the EMR---the ...
Read more...
"A comprehensive and extremely useful roadmap for doctors."
-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
Learn More...
Past 6 Months
Dear lawmakers: This is what it’s like to be a doctor today
Matthew Moeller, MD | PhysicianA gun owner responds to Sandy Hook
Edwin Leap, MD | PhysicianIs Chris Christie too obese to run for president?
Jeffrey Parks, MD | PhysicianIf I’m wrong about guns, can you please explain why?
Claire McCarthy, 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