The time is ripe for virtual care solutions in COPD
There’s a burgeoning crisis taking hold in the COPD management space; there are simply not enough pulmonologists, respiratory therapists, or pulmonary rehabilitation facilities to treat the growing number of COPD patients. This has left our field with an urgent window of opportunity to implement digital innovation into traditional treatment paradigms. Ironically enough, it was a respiratory disease that led to a global pandemic more than two years ago, which …
A physician shares his financial mistakes
Physicians often make mistakes when it comes to their personal finances and wealth-building strategy. We are human, after all. Private forums, blogs, and podcasts are filled with horror stories of physicians being scammed into buying expensive whole-life insurance, having disability insurance that didn’t include own-occupation coverage, and being steered toward high-fee investment vehicles by financial advisors. There are also countless situations, such as messy divorces, the risks of doing business …
The key to reversing the aging process
There is no escape from our ultimate decline and death. The sooner we accept and embrace that reality, the freer we are to live life to the fullest now. So when I speak of reversing the aging process, I’m really referring to reversing the acceleration. If you recall the Newtonian physics from your high school physics class, acceleration is the velocity …
What’s the sense of having a living will if it’s not honored?
‘This victory ensures that advance planning documents are legally enforceable and will be respected by doctors; if they are not, individuals can hold providers accountable for violating their health care decisions.”
– Greenberg decision, 2022
Dr. Gerald Greenberg was a New York dentist when in 2010, he was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. In 2011, he executed a living will stating the medical staff was to provide comfort measures only and no medical …
The vampire, phlebotomy, and advocating for my care
Every five weeks, I see a different vampire from the phlebotomy and give this collective of blood-suckers consent to take my blood. The crimson-filled, turquoise-capped vacutainer is destined for analysis to see how fast my blood coagulates. If the vampires read my chart, they would see the graph showing values dating back to 2015, marking my third open-heart surgery when I got my mechanical aortic valve. My lab testing is …
Can Medicare advance directives be simple?
Consider Medicare enrollment with the end in mind. In case of emergency, do seniors prefer medical care or holistic care? Might they designate a medical power of attorney or a merciful power of attorney? Do they oblige CPR or sign a DNR order?
The JAMA Network just published Death and End-of-Life Care in Emergency Departments in the U.S. This retrospective cohort study concludes that,
Robust systems of emergency care …
The solution to America’s primary care shortage is direct primary care
Primary care in the United States is on the brink of collapse. Primary care providers suffer existential burnout, are the lowest compensated among all medical specialties, and there is a crisis-level shortage of primary care physicians, especially in health professional shortage areas. Despite strong evidence linking primary care (unlike any other medical specialty) to a better quality of life, longer life expectancy, better patient experience, and lower total …
When contentment falls short
Sliding toward another solstice, I feel myself yearning. I want the daylight to stay a little longer, soft like this, gentle warmth and lovely shadows, lazy breezes, the illusion of contentment.
But I am not content. Or perhaps I am, but whereas I once thought contentment was the goal, the sentiment makes me uneasy now.
“Nothing gold can stay,” Robert Frost wrote. To stay content would be to embrace the shift in …
What consumers want from telehealth
After becoming more familiar with telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing number of consumers today are realizing the value and convenience of virtual visits for minor urgent issues, chronic disease management, and mental health services.
At the same time, an overwhelming majority of consumers believe it is important that both their regular doctor and their telehealth provider have access to their health records for sharing critical data such as current …
A medical student’s greatest mistake
I made a mistake.
I almost failed out of undergrad as a premed. Yet this wasn’t the greatest mistake, the one that’s only now dawning on me as I stand at a crossroads in considerable decision-making despair.
Growing up in a loving yet highly dysfunctional home, I turned down a full presidential scholarship to attend a highly coveted college to make my parents, who grew up impoverished, proud. Yet the lingering trauma …
Who’s holding space for you?
The first time I saw someone die was when I volunteered in the ER as an undergraduate student.
That day I was helping in the trauma bay, and my job was to quickly run STAT or urgent blood specimens to the lab.
The year was 1994. It was winter time, and the tension of the people sitting in the waiting room was palpable to me every time I would go through those …
How accelerated learning platforms are pushing surgical education forward
Surgical training has long been confined to traditional models of Halstedian apprenticeship, where trainees are guided—but also potentially limited—by their superiors. Within this dynamic, the transfer of knowledge from expert to learner is dependent on individual educators, which can then be easily affected by personal circumstances and potential unconscious biases.
Physicians are often busy and rightly focused on patient care, but this can lead to uncaptured and delayed feedback for …
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Psychic numbing: Why we would prefer to save a single dog instead of thousands of humans
In 2002 a fire broke out on an oil tanker hundreds of miles south of Hawaii. All eight of the crew members were successfully rescued, but, as it was later realized, the captain’s dog, Hokget, was left behind. The two-year-old terrier was alone on the tanker, floating around in the Pacific Ocean.
The lost dog story made headlines, and people donated thousands of dollars to the Hawaiian Humane Society to save …
The promise of patient-centered biotechnology
An excerpt from Inside The Orphan Drug Revolution: The Promise of Patient-Centered Biotechnology.
Pre-revolutionary stirrings
Every revolution rises up against an order in need of reform. For the orphan drug revolution, that order was the pharmaceutical industry of the 1970s. Most pharma companies had been founded by entrepreneurial chemists or pharmacists decades …
The holidays can open up a range of emotions
Physician suicide rates are unacceptably high at baseline and go even higher during the holidays. The holiday increase in suicide rates is not unique to physicians, though. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), A 2021 survey showed that 3 in 5 Americans feel their mental health is negatively impacted by the holidays.
And suicide is a problem that goes beyond the …
Don’t make this mistake with gratitude
We hear it all the time.
Practice gratitude. Be thankful for what you have.
The evidence is clear. Being grateful does offer numerous scientifically proven benefits.
It makes sense why gratitude is good for you, from improved relationships to decreased physical pain to better sleep to increased happiness and self-esteem.
In fact, it’s one of the keys to leading an abundant life full of what you desire and deserve.
But gratitude is not just …
Gil Scott-Heron’s “Winter in America” is upon us
For me, the cheerful musical sounds of the holiday season invariably give way to a somber song: Gil Scott-Heron’s “Winter in America.” Dubbed the “Godfather of Rap,” Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011) embraced diverse musical styles alternating between jazz, blues, soul, and hip-hop. He wasn’t known for delivering good tidings as much as he was for sermonizing and engaging in “Small Talk at …
Suicide isn’t painless for those left behind
Suicide isn’t beautiful. It’s not glamorous. It’s not Virginia Woolf, with pockets full of stones walking calmly into the water surrounded by trees and dappled sunlight with string music playing in the background as you slowly sink under the water.
Suicide is blood and vomit pouring out of your nose. It’s losing control of your bladder and bowels and soiling yourself. It’s blood all over the bathroom floor. Or, it’s bits …
When was the last time you wore a white coat?
When the COVID-19 pandemic began to dominate all aspects of health care, many of our colleagues opted to wear scrubs instead of their routine work attire and white coats. They cited concerns about personal infectious risk and not wanting to bring the virus home to their loved ones on their clothes. This reluctance aligned with research on the white coat as a nidus for infection, but it conflicted with the …
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Past Week
-
Health care as a human right vs. commodity: Resolving the paradox
-
My wife’s story: How DEA and CDC guidelines destroyed our golden years
-
Why voicemail in outpatient care is failing patients and staff
-
Stopping medication requires as much skill as starting it [PODCAST]
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Physician weight loss strategy: Why willpower isn’t enough in 2026
-
Post-stroke cognitive impairment: the hidden challenge of recovery
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Past 6 Months
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How environmental justice and health disparities connect to climate change
-
Will AI replace primary care physicians?
-
A physician father on the Dobbs decision and reproductive rights
-
What is the minority tax in medicine?
-
Why the U.S. health care system is failing patients and physicians
-
Alex Pretti: a physician’s open letter defending his legacy
-
Recent Posts
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Physician weight loss strategy: Why willpower isn’t enough in 2026
-
The health insurance crisis 2026: What Kentuckians need to know
-
Weaponizing food allergies in entertainment endangers lives [PODCAST]
-
Geriatric diabetes management: Why strict A1c targets can harm seniors
-
Why progression independent of relapse activity is the silent driver of disability in multiple sclerosis
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Why medical school DEI mission statements matter for future physicians
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