Memorial Day weekend is an apt time to consider the recent accusations of wrongdoing in the VA healthcare system. It’s an opportunity to face the truth. As a free American, I am connected to veterans. It has always been remarkable that young people give their life or health for their country, but now, in this […]
If you like thinking and writing, few topics are better than the excess exercise and heart disease story. Indeed it is a matter for the curious. Two studies published last week in the British journal Heart addressed the relationship of exercise and heart disease. (See references below.) Although these studies garnered mainstream media attention they […]
Hey Everyone, I recently returned from the Heart Rhythm Society meeting in San Francisco. I attended the meeting as both a physician-journalist-columnist for theHeart.org and as a practicing electrophysiologist. As it so often is with international meetings, I returned energized and rejuvenated about the practice of medicine. Medical meetings are great this way. It’s quite […]
Categories
Mother’s Day…2014
As I return home from the Heart Rhythm Society sessions in San Francisco this Mother’s Day, I got to thinking about my mom. Here I am, a cardiac electrophysiologist, a doctor. I’m traveling to meetings, learning to write commentary, making friends with colleagues across the globe. How did this happen? Surely with great luck, but, […]
I just arrived in San Francisco. I am here for the 2014 Heart Rhythm Society sessions. The meeting begins today. A poster session this evening is overflowing with notable studies. Stay tuned. I’ll be working hard for theheart.org to bring you the best stories. First, though, here’s a little appetizer. On the eve of the […]
Patterns. As a doctor, you learn to see patterns. Biologists call the patterns of organisms phenotype–as opposed to genotype, the genetic makeup. For twenty years, I have observed the phenotypes (patterns) of people afflicted with AF, and have come to believe, and data are beginning to confirm, that the disease doesn’t just happen. It’s not […]
One of the selfish reasons I love being a physician is the honor of being included in such a respectable group. Doctors are good people, smart people, dedicated people. These are my colleagues, my mates, my fraternity. This attachment to the honor of doctoring is why it pains me when we hurt ourselves with our […]
One of the biggest changes in healthcare in recent times is the emphasis on decision-making. Patients and doctors now work with big menus. It’s mostly a good thing, but a certainty with increased choice is increased conflict. As a doctor who works in a field–electrophysiology–that is almost exclusively preference-sensitive, I’ve grown increasingly interested in why […]
Everyone agrees that doctors should be informed and up-to-date. Perpetual medical education has always been a vital component of doctoring. But now, as the rapid pace of healthcare innovation pushes against the limits of biology, and really, our humanity, medical education gains even more importance. Doctors (and patients) must know what can and cannot be […]
…and this is the crux of the practice of medicine. I just had a Eureka moment while talking on the phone with a patient. We were discussing how to manage her increasingly frequent episodes of atrial fibrillation. She was also dealing with two other major health problems. She asked me: Are these things connected? In […]
Students of the obvious might consider the topic of physician satisfaction one of mere folly. The “rich doctor†label is an easy one, and the recent Medicare data dump, which revealed hordes of physicians who were doing quite well, thank you, only strengthened it. Yet, when one moves past intuition, into analytical thinking, the contentment […]