Hi All, Here is a short update of the past week. The first thing to say is the Atrial Fibrillation Care: Put the Catheter (and Rx Pad) Down post has gotten a lot of attention. It stayed on the most popular list all week. It has over a 130 comments, and I have received many […]
Hi all, Things have changed for me. I have taken on a larger role at theheart.org | Medscape Cardiology. This means I have less time for hefty original posts here. (This site is not closing–just changing.) I write and read a lot more, though. Almost every day. Writing has morphed into what cycling was: a […]
Last night, during the intro show for the PBS documentary, Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies, a Ken Burns film based on the book by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Katie Couric interviews both Ken Burns and Dr. Mukherjee. The moment occurred about 10 minutes into the video. There is a poignant scene in which two young parents […]
Hi all, I have been busy in the last few weeks. Here is an update of my happenings and posts. From March 8-11, I attended and presented at the third annual Lown Institute Conference in San Diego. I have never felt more at home in a conference than I did at the Lown conference. Take […]
I am in San Diego to participate in the Lown Institute Road to Right Care: Engage, Organize, Transform conference. It is an honor to be included in a conference that has “right care” in its title. Tomorrow, Dr. David Martin (Lahey Clinic) and I will co-present a case-based session on the overuse and misuse of […]
Here is an update on my recent writing. Athletes and AF: I was honored to be invited back to the Western AF symposium in Park City, Utah. Last year, I presented on social media. This year, Dr. Nassir Marrouche (University of Utah) asked me to tackle the topic of atrial fibrillation in athletes. This is […]
It took me four years to convince my wife, Dr. Staci Mandrola, to join Twitter. Like many (previously) analog docs, Staci was resistant. “I don’t need another distraction,” went one of the arguments. Yet I knew if she tried Twitter, she would love the medium. If you care about a topic, if you are curious, […]
The problem with AF treatment is that we do not (really) understand the underlying causes of the disease. Why does the heart fibrillate? What gets those pesky premature beats started? Why do intermittent episodes persist? Why does AF come back after shocks or ablation? AF has been thought of as its own disease. You have […]
Do you wonder what makes good medicine? Really good medicine. The sort of good medicine that will never be evident on a spreadsheet or publicly reported website. And surely not the ACE-I, statin, beta-blocker, get an echo, nuclear and cath kind of good medicine. Just read this. (It’s cyclist friendly, too.) JMM
Why do doctors lose credibility? Consider the few public doctors out there with millions of followers. The majority of the stuff they recommend is perfect: eat good food, exercise, be nice. and sleep. Check. No problem. Everyone is good with that until they shatter the sense with nonsense. One miracle cure or stupid supplement or […]
This week is a good time to talk about trust in expert opinion and science. For the past forty years, nutrition experts in the US have warned us about cholesterol and fat. Eat too much of it and it will block your arteries, was the proclamation. Americans did what the scientists and experts said. They […]