I would like to tell you the details of the patient I saw today. And she’d probably be good with it. But I can’t tell you anything specific, and that’s sad because the story approaches that too-often-used word, “epic.” It all began a couple years ago when she was first diagnosed by a nurse practitioner. […]
There’s a lot about health care news that can get you down. There’s the un-insured. The obesity crisis. Stifling regulation. Adverse effects from drugs and devices. Mistakes even. Today, though, I would like to tell you about an inspiring success story here at my little hospital–a cabin in the woods of sorts. Our motto is […]
It happened. My 21-year old cycling teammate called to give me the “good” news. I made it. Clayton said I could now call myself a Top Doc. After practicing medicine for 15 years in the little known sub-sub-specialty of cardiac electrophysiology, this was my first Top Docs mention. Of course, I know this non-evidenced based […]
Today I would like to say thanks to a group of colleagues that too often go un-thanked. These would be my hospital-based internal medicine friends: hospitalists are what they are called. This idea came to me after reading Dr Robert Centor’s post on KevinMD. In his usual concise manner, he laments the lack of respect […]
<Apologies in advance: this post is a (major) re-write of an old post.> Heart rhythm doctors are trained observers. We spend our days focusing on minute squiggles which are timed in milliseconds. It’s all a lot of observation. It’s only natural that one’s work skills might spill over to normal life. Plumbers are handy around […]
His name is Sam, you know, like in “Sam I am.†He is 19 years old, a college sophomore-to-be, who sadly plans to study chemistry–more on that later. He looked happy and rested; he kept his cellphone in his locker the entire day; and while dressed in too large scrubs, a crooked surgical cap and […]
When I learn something that might be useful to you, I like to write about it. To date, the topics that I feel most comfortable writing about relate to doctoring, heart disease, healthy living and cycling. But an area that I am growing more and more intrigued with is health news reporting. As a believer […]
Medical people know that July is a pivotal month. Things change, big time. In the academic world, July 1st is the day when graduated medical students wake up as doctors. Well, at least officially an intern is a doctor. I seem to remember internship feeling like a demotion. In my world of private practice, July […]
The staff was concerned that she came to the office without her interpreter. How would we communicate? How would I assess her symptoms? “Should we get a translator from the hospital?” they asked. I knew this patient well. I had done battle with rogue circuits in her left atrium more than once. I could even […]
I read two interesting sentences today about the act of doctoring. The first from the White Coat Underground blog: “Medicine involves a lot of salesmanship.” The second was from this NY Times health piece highlighting the difficult decisions that arise when recommending procedures to an elderly patient: “…[Have] you felt that a doctor or hospital […]