Nearly every day an email comes with medical news and it is truly remarkable how many repetitive studies are done, which show adherence to the usual lifestyle factors, diet, exercise and cessation of smoking improve outcomes. This past week the Go Red for Women Hearts is yet another proclamation, specifically to women, to get with […]
The practice of medicine is glorious, and I love it, but cynicism must be overcome. What cynicism? A far more established and connected blogger, Dr Wes, writes of the way technology strains the doctor-patient relationship. It involves a piece in the Chicago Tribune in which a study published in a major journal outlined doctors […]
If only it was like the old days reading ECG’s in the bland room with Dr Fisch. A cardiologist sues a hospital in Ohio and stands to gain millions. Reminds one of the angry kid on the playground who does not like the game and takes his bat and ball home, but in this case […]
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Goodbye Jude…
It is a Saturday morning in the Kentucky spring time and there are many like minded on the ride. First, turning circles in the vast parking lot of EP Tom Sawyer park waiting for our commander to give the word to proceed out into the green rolling hills. Soon, a humming of chains and clicking […]
I happily exclaim on entering the patient’s room on morning rounds, “Good news, your heart rhythm is regular, the atrial fibrillation is gone!” “Converted at 0230 this am,” he says in a fatigued voice. I ask, “How do you know it was 0230?” He tells me, “Because the nurse came in, flipped on the lights, […]
Conflicted am I on reading of the strategy of a group of South Miami cardiologists who have written their patients complaining of the cuts to reimbursement, primarily cuts in imaging procedures. Â A tension emerges from within upon reading the following quote from a “healthcare expert.” “I’m not at all sympathetic with the cardiologists,” said Robert […]
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The Human Mind…
Remarkable. The scene is the Brown Theatre, Louisville Ky. The crowd, primarily women but surprisingly not all with painted eyebrows filters in and there is this sense that others are looking at each other for validation. I study their faces to determine whether they are believers and then realize many look at me with the […]
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The costume…
Does it matter what a doctor wears? A simple search on ‘doctors attire’ yields many studies and words of opinion but yet no consensus. As background, electrophysiologists seem most comfortable in those ubiquitous blue or green hospital issue scrubs, most commonly accompanied by tennis shoes. Maybe this is a right given the long hours of […]
Catheter Ablation of the planets most ubiquitous arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation was in the news this week. A study showing pulmonary vein isolation is far more effective than drugs for controlling AF in a relatively young healthy patient cohort who has failed a prior anti-arrhythmic drug. It strikes me as an intellectually honest study: 5645 patients […]
Today, after a string of hard but professionally gratifying days in the EP lab, a nurse and friend asks me at dinner time while still working in the lab, “Hey, how’s that reading books and writing thing going?” Â Funny how a question lingers in the mind. A discovery is in the midst. Â Not huge […]
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A good day to work…
The sun has long since set in the January dreariness that barely is visible through the rare window in the lead walls of the Cath Lab. The masses are home, the “squishers” are long since done, but two of the five rooms still toil. The rhythm doctors are still rolling -as it is frequently. Heart […]