Shah-Naz H. Khan is a neurosurgeon.

Why the public’s anger at a health care CEO’s death speaks volumes

Physician
January 3, 2025

It was rich to watch the TV pundits, who excel at creating storms in a teacup, feigning shock at the public response on social media to UnitedHealthcare’s CEO being gunned down. They were aghast at the over 57,000 laugh emojis on the statement of condolence platitudes put out by UnitedHealthcare. Mr. Smercornish on CNN was properly clutching his pearls and, after some scolding, declared at least the responders on the …

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Why the public’s anger at a health care CEO’s death speaks volumes

Young lives at risk: the unseen dangers of fentanyl addiction

Conditions
July 27, 2024

When we go charging in blood vessels at breathtaking speed to relieve the blockade that otherwise may bring a sad end to life, we expect to be doing it for the mature and elderly. The stress and strains upon the heart through the journey that is life upend the natural rhythm and flow, with the turbulence churning up clots like butter from milk that flow downstream till the narrowed channels …

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Young lives at risk: the unseen dangers of fentanyl addiction

Medicine’s struggle for inclusivity

Physician
April 22, 2024

Medicine, with its somewhat tarred history in the matter, has woken to the cause of inclusivity. Not too long ago, in the early twentieth century, the American Medical Association (AMA) orchestrated reforms requiring immigrant European doctors to pass rigorous qualification exams, which most American doctors themselves were highly unlikely to clear. Rather than concern about standards, it was largely cynical turf protection to squeeze out better-trained doctors the patients were …

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Medicine’s struggle for inclusivity

Curing ailing health care: Embracing ethical traditions and prioritizing patient care

Physician
August 23, 2023

The cure for ailing health care lies in returning to ethical traditions, prioritizing patient care over profits, holding physicians accountable, and reforming existing oversight bodies and professional organizations. The ailing health care is curable. To be made whole again, it requires obvious but drastic steps. The crux of the problem is that medicine largely abandoned its own traditions and time-tested modus operandi in favor of the seemingly efficient and shiny …

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Curing ailing health care: Embracing ethical traditions and prioritizing patient care

Patients come to you for treatment, not your politics

Physician
September 17, 2022

As he was being wheeled in for surgery, President Reagan joked, “I hope you are Republicans.” The surgeon, a liberal Democrat, replied, “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.”

All very appropriate and from another era. As a usually intelligent and intellectual segment of society, it is not surprising that physicians should have opinions, including politics. As citizens, they are entitled to them too.

In fact, one would hope that physicians participate …

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Patients come to you for treatment, not your politics

In defense of medical errors

Physician
April 14, 2022

I gasped at the guilty verdict that halted my indifferent scroll through the newsfeed.

In the course of her duties, a nurse who had accidentally administered the wrong drug, self-reported her mistake, and remorsefully admitted her error to a body of her peers was turned into a criminal.

If that standard was applied across the board to medical mishaps, health care as we know it would not exist. We will all be …

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In defense of medical errors

Medical malpractice: Don’t let the minority define us

Policy
September 16, 2021

When we shake our heads at the snake oil salesmen of yesteryears and wonder how the people then could have been so naïve as to fall for the crude shenanigans, we are wearing blinders with our eyes wide open. Malpractice remains alive and well. Those who care can cite many causes for this blight in our profession. The frequent targets of a doctor’s pointing accusatory finger are the greedy insurance …

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Medical malpractice: Don’t let the minority define us