The first time my barber saw my shaved head, he smirked, and told me he didn’t think healthy people shaving their heads helped cancer patients. (Conflict of interest does not only involve pharmaceutical and medical device companies.) He’s right and wrong. Sure, my agreeing to have my head shaved by the highest bidder doesn’t help […]
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 […]
The iphone chimes later in the night than usual. The text message, from a college-aged friend, reads, “thanks for playing with me on the ride today.†It is true that exercise comes wrapped in many different packages. There is gyrating on a AHA-endorsed Wii, and then there is the Tuesday Night World championships, as it is […]
AHA is now endorsing a video-game, for 1.5 million dollars. Â Shocking. On this nonsense one has to write fast. Â Dr Wes is in. CardioBrief is in. Even GMA whacked the AHA. It took 900 words for the AHA to explain their position. Hint: in medicine, long notes usually imply a shaky thesis. A central argument […]
Although this study did not make headlines, its findings jumped off the page of the 566 page supplement listing all of HeartRhythm 2010’s abstracts. The presentation, from a Harvard group, revealed more sobering news on the risks of ICD implantation. Enlightenment on ICD complications was hidden away in this study that primarily looked at something […]
Even in Bordeaux, expensive robots prove no better than the human hands, in AF ablation. As presented last week at HRS, the justifiably famous Bordeaux group compared the highly proclaimed (especially in the mainstream media) robotic ablation system against the conventional human approach, and concluded the following… Conclusions: MNS (ed. note: MNS=robot) guided PVI in patients […]
He seeks me out for another opinion about his atrial fibrillation. This is good. “Doc, you know I had one of those ablation procedures (at another hospital) last year. It hasn’t seemed to work, as I am having lots of AF.” About that time, my MA comes in the room with a copy of the […]
Defibrillators (ICDs) are in the news today. Few medical treatments are more misunderstood, both by doctors and patients, than the ICD. It was a huge observational study presented today in Denver at the annual HRS (Heart Rhythm Society) meeting. In 88,804 ICD patients from 2500 centers, researchers studied how ICD programming related to inappropriate shocks. They concluded: (translation […]
It’s terrible news. Speeding through college to save 10,000 dollars. Seriously? As a mid-forty year old solidly ensconced in the mini-van era of life, it saddens me to see young people–in an effort to save a few dollars–rushing through the finest of times, life in college. Treating college as some sort of right of passage to […]
It’s late at night, the pain is transcendent and worse yet, I am tangled up in tubes in a sweat-soaked hospital bed. The collapsed lung, fractured ribs and chest tube have transformed an independent doctor into a needy patient. She answered my ring right away, coming to my aid quickly and with a warm demeanor, […]
Having friends to ride with is good. I’ve missed riding with her. We rode last night, and it was nice. She is of bavarian heritage, a little over-engineered, possibly. Unfortunately, of late, she has spent a great deal of time either too sick to accompany me on rides, or even worse, she has been away […]