I know physicians. They are smart, hard-working and prideful. They do a lot of good in this world. But one thing we have been utterly incapable of doing is organizing together and speaking as one voice. The American Board of Internal Medicine may have changed that. The hubris, overreach, and tone-deafness of ABIM may have […]
Category: Doctoring
A report from the WSJ this week detailed the fact that FDA reviewers had significant and undisclosed financial ties to industry. I found this discovery remarkable, especially the undisclosed part. But perhaps more remarkable was the lack of reaction it created. The article has only 39 comments, paltry numbers of Tweets and FB shares and […]
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Viva La Evidence
Hi All, It’s been a while. The hospital is abuzz with electrophysiology problems. I’ve been unleashing some serious medical fury in the past weeks. It has been fun, though it gets in the way of writing and training. James McCormack (@medmyths) is a “Pharmacist, Professor, Medication Mythbuster, and Healthy Skeptic at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical […]
Last week, I attended the American Heart Association (AHA) 2014 Scientific Sessions in Chicago. I was there as both a learner and physician-writer for theHeart.org. Here are a few paragraphs on the meeting. The main purpose of this post is to introduce the five editorials I wrote. The links to the posts are at the […]
The longer I practice medicine, the more nervous I get about medications, especially when patients are already on other drugs for chronic diseases. I much prefer deprescribing. A recent study on the common antibiotic cotrimoxazole, which is a combination of sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim, and often referred to by its brand name, Bactrim or Septra, lends […]
If you ever hear your doctor say we are going to do something because there is nothing else to do, be afraid. Be very afraid. First of all, it should be self-evident that if caring and empathy and relief of suffering count as doing something, there is always something to do for patients. A growing problem […]
There is a lot of talk about rewarding value in US healthcare. Don’t believe any of it. It’s not happening. Not even close. This is a post about the real world–where I practice medicine. In a comment on yesterday’s post, Lisa wondered how I connected the current model of employing doctors and paying them on […]
What follows is a short intro to my latest column on theHeart.org | Medscape Cardiology. —- The title of the piece is Three Concerning Trends in the Electrophysiology Clinic. I worked on the 750-word piece the entire week. It was hard to get the tone just right. This is because the trends do not reflect […]
Maybe you wonder why a cardiologist writes about vaccines and mammography. It is because I have grown intensely interested in the medical decision. As a doctor in a preference-sensitive field, electrophysiology, how do I help patients understand and choose the best path–of which there are many. This seems like a simple task, but with humans, […]
This is a short intro to my latest column over at Trials and Fibrillations on theHeart.org Medscape|Cardiology. —- I am not sure why doctors so often look past the best medicine. It’s right there before our eyes. Yet somehow we get sidetracked by the culture of pills and procedures. Modern-day caregivers fail to master the […]
In July, I wrote a short blog post expressing doubt about the value of statin drugs. Medscape republished it on their website and it went viral–in a medical sort of way. The post has 631 comments. It was Tweeted extensively, page views have been off the charts (for me), and I even received an invitation […]