I tweeted yesterday that the US healthcare delivery system remains broken. With only 140 characters, there was little means to expand. Let me tell you a story and then you be the judge. The patient was elderly and had multiple chronic medical problems, including the chief complaint of debilitating orthopedic issues. I was asked to […]
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Judging other doctors is tough. You are torn. On the one hand, as a member of the profession, it’s hard to read stories of misdeeds of fellow cardiologists and remain neutral. You want to call out the foul. You want to set the record straight. That doctor did wrong. Justice needs to be done. I […]
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Nadirs and pegs
Medicine is that way. You can get yourself in nadirs. It’s emotional, being a real doctor. You care about so much. You are attached. That’s the problem. Attachment leads to suffering and then to nadirs. Truth be told, most doctors, myself included, hang a lot of their self-esteem on the doctoring peg. I’m not sure […]
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My World’s CX race report
A serious writer would not make habit of serving up frivolous race reports. Is chronicling the efforts of a watt-deficient middle-aged (grandfather) CX racer even worth the bandwidth? Perhaps not, but this was a special week in Louisville. And with all the seriousness in the world, a little tomfoolery might be soothing. I promise that […]
On Wednesdays, I try to write on a topic of exercise and health. If you exercise but still have high cholesterol or other risks for heart disease, you may be interested in a new study from my old medical school proving ground–Hartford Hospital. The deftly named STOMP trial looked carefully at the effects of statin […]
There was good news today in the atrial fibrillation world. Though no surprise to heart rhythm doctors, an FDA investigation reveals no evidence that new cases of bleeding are any higher with dabigatran (Pradaxa) than with warfarin. The full statement from the FDA is here. The assessment was undertaken because after approval of the novel […]
I say it over and over again. I urge, cajole and yes, sometimes even plead. It’s the small choices that add up… …to good outcomes. Outcomes? That’s the thing. It could be good health measures like lower blood pressure or boastful cholesterol levels, or it could be successful cycling results. Small choices. Little things. Not […]
Let’s talk about some of the factors that go into choosing medicines to suppress AF episodes. We call this “rhythm control.” In Part 1, I introduced some of the complexities of heart rhythm medicine. In this post, I hope to clarify a few of the many issues that come into play when considering a rhythm […]
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I am still here…
If you weren’t a doctor; you couldn’t be a doctor-blogger. That’s obvious–and obviousness is one of my themes. The trouble about being a doctor-blogger is that doctoring doesn’t always happen on a schedule. Neither does perfect health. Remember, we doctors aren’t cyborgs; we get fevers and stuff too. Wait, I always say that. Never repeat […]
Big news was released today in the treatment of heart attack. Please allow me a (slightly) wordy intro. —— I’m not normally an alarmist. I often vouch for the heart’s durability. The exception to this rule is heart attack. Heart attacks are…well…very serious. In this case, alarm is clearly a good thing. So is teamwork. […]
Who knew that a having a nuclear stress test might put you at risk for suspicion of terrorism? No, I am not making this up. A famous medical blogger, known as the Skeptical Scalpel, cited this bizarre news report of a CT firefighter who was stopped by the state police. The unsuspecting public servant was […]