Doctoring in the trenches, using our knowledge and techno-gadgetry to enhance or save lives, is uplifting. Reading news on heath care reform is “not so much.” Reform has yet to begin, but businesses and doctors are already changing their behavior. As chronicled in this depressing piece, it is clear that doctors are joining consolidated practices and […]
Category: Health Care
The past few days, instead of the usual labors in the EP lab, I spent 48 hours as a parent chaperone on an out-of-town middle school field trip. The schedule was frantic, befitting a 13 year old much more so than a 46 year old. But that’s another story. Suffice it to say, that AF […]
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I don’t think so…
Will slackers lead us to health-care shangri-la? I know a fair number of slackers; it seems highly unlikely they will be leading health-care anywhere. Oops, I am two years from slackerdom. On the WSJ health blog, delivered to me by my new adventure, Twitter, an executive level think-taker is quoted as saying about our present-day health care […]
Medical advancement stomps on. This week, Genetics takes front stage. Really, it’s cool. I know; I was a skeptic too. That is, until I read this most amazing paper on the real-life clinical utility of knowing the whole genome of a person. It felt like peering into the future of medicine. Background from the real […]
Yesterday, I wrote that doctors might need help in getting our patients to make only modest changes in their lifestyle. Could our government help? Like the fat guy climbing the hill who needs a push, our patients need help. In Louisville, we have donuts worthy of feature stories in the local paper. The banning of […]
The patient is anxiously sitting on the exam table. A notebook, a pencil and many papers from the internet and other doctors are close at hand. A spouse sits in the accompanying chair with an equally anxious face that says without words, “please help us out here.” The problem at hand is atrial fibrillation. Paroxysms […]
I walked out of the hospital with heavy shoulders and my head held low. It was many years ago as a younger doctor. An arrhythmia arose from a difficult area to navigate to, and in trying hard to ablate this area, a terrible complication ensued. The rest of the day was spent dealing with this […]
Wow. Congratulations to Dr Melissa Walton-Shirley for her leadership role in achieving a smoking ban in Glasgow, KY. That’s right, Glasgow KY, deep in the heart of one of America’s largest tobacco producing counties. Ablating atrial fibrillation, implanting ICDs and “squishing” blockages are procedures that help the singular few. They can often prove challenging, […]
My infinitely more famous colleague, Dr Wes has a very nice summary piece on how the recent healthcare reform bill will affect doctors. It is very well written, concise and instructive. I get it. I don’t here Fox news. There is good in the bill, like the pre-existing condition clause, and prohibiting an insurance company […]
Here is an example of how increased regulation from third parties attempts to control costs, but actually does the opposite. A middle aged patient whom I have seen in the past for benign palpitations called today because of atypical chest pain. Although I have criticized the overuse of nuclear imaging studies, and probably order the fewest of […]
Much energy in previous posts have centered on the ablation of heart rhythm disturbances. Navigating a GPS guided catheter through the beating heart, triangulating the source of the ectopic impulse, and then delivering a cautery-like RF lesion is fun to do, gratifying to all involved, and makes for decent writing topics. However cool ablation is […]