Deepak Gupta, MD

Deepak Gupta is an anesthesiologist.

September 30, 2026Sep 30, 2026

Looking at emotional maturity through an epidemiological lens may unravel the endemic status of emotional immaturity in postmodern humanity. Is its epidemic proportion a new-age phenomenon? Has its endemicity been innate since the dawn of humanity? Does it extend beyond humanity into the nonhuman systems that humans devise? Humans have long invented historical myths and fictional entities in order to organize nonhumans and to prevail over them by tradition. Are …

Physician

AI and assisted dying raise questions of accountability

Deepak Gupta, MD

September 25, 2026Sep 25, 2026

It has already been said, "We will die in the system we create." The statement raises a larger question: What do we mean by death? Death can be spiritual through excommunication, economic through expulsion from work, social through eviction from…

It has already been said, “We will die in the system we create.” The statement raises a larger question: What do we mean by death? Death can be spiritual through excommunication, economic through expulsion from work, social through eviction from a community, psychological through exclusion and loss of sanity, or physical through extinction. Birth and death often result from forces beyond an individual’s control. Yet death can also become intentional. …

Conditions and Diseases

Shift work and circadian rhythms shape the 24/7 workplace

Deepak Gupta, MD

September 23, 2026Sep 23, 2026

Work may provide incomparable inner peace, but the timing of that work still matters. A shift may begin in the morning, evening, or night, and it may end during another part of the day. For workers’ circadian rhythms, the relevant question is not simply how long they work, but how the beginning and end of a shift fit together. That question matters whether the work ultimately serves humans or nonhumans.

Does …

Physician

A national medical license would cut administrative burden

Deepak Gupta, MD

September 3, 2026Sep 3, 2026

Lawyers have to know the laws of the state where they practice. Physicians largely do not. Medical norms, ethics, and morals are close to universal, which means physician practice could in principle be governed by universal law. There are exceptions.…

The broader pattern is stranger than the exceptions. Neither lawyers nor physicians should have to acclimatize to institutional norms …

Physician

How a self-driving car medical escort could work

Deepak Gupta, MD

June 3, 2026Jun 3, 2026

Ensuring a patient escort has long been a standard safety requirement for discharge after outpatient anesthesia. The rule is increasingly difficult to satisfy for patients who live alone. Even when a loner patient can arrange for someone to closely oversee them at home until the effects of anesthesia have completely worn off, which is generally presumed to be a 24-hour period after administration, they cannot always ensure someone to physically …

Conditions and Diseases

Outsourcing patient contact: a solution for multilingual health care

Deepak Gupta, MD

February 26, 2026Feb 26, 2026

The fissuring of health care, along the lines of "The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It" by David Weil (2014), may not be entirely negative after all. Outsourcing…

The fissuring of health care, along the lines of “The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It” by David Weil (2014), may not be entirely negative after all. Outsourcing patient contact services, perioperative or otherwise, to centralized, multilingual third-party entities with nationwide reach may be the need of the hour in an ever-evolving multilingual society seeking health care. In …

Physician

How transplant recipients can pay it forward through organ donation

Deepak Gupta, MD

September 12, 2025Sep 12, 2025

The "pay-play it forward" concept for organ transplantation is simple. Simplistically, the organ donors' data can be explored, if feasible, to determine incidence or prevalence of organ donations by the organ recipients, thus "paying it forward." Thereafter, the organ recipients'…

The “pay-play it forward” concept for organ transplantation is simple. Simplistically, the organ donors’ data can be explored, if feasible, to determine incidence or prevalence of organ donations by the organ recipients, thus “paying it forward.” Thereafter, the organ recipients’ data can be explored, if feasible, to determine incidence or prevalence of pledged organ donors among the organ recipients. Finally, the transplant waiting lists’ data can be explored, if feasible, …

Physician

Should anesthesiologists object to unnecessary procedures?

Deepak Gupta, MD

September 7, 2025Sep 7, 2025

Before making the case for evolving formal fellowships for physician anesthesiologists to conscientiously and systematically object to unnecessary health care, particularly unnecessary procedures, it is worth first exploring what constitutes “necessary.” Only then can we begin to regulate what may be considered “unnecessary.” Can physician anesthesiologists lead such academic and practical regulatory efforts, even amid potential conflicts of interest inherent in their role as anesthesia care providers?

This raises several important …

Conditions and Diseases

Could ECMO change where we die and how our organs are donated?

Deepak Gupta, MD

August 29, 2025Aug 29, 2025

The question is not where one is born, because birthplace—whether a country or continent—is never chosen by oneself, but always determined by others and the surrounding environment. Nor is the question where one lives, because even though the place, country,…

The question is not where one is born, because birthplace—whether a country or continent—is never chosen by oneself, but always determined by others and the surrounding environment.

Nor is the question where one lives, because even though the place, country, or continent may seem self-chosen, it is often influenced or guided by others and external circumstances.

The real question is where one belongs, because the feeling of belonging—to a place, country, or …

Physician

Why practicing medicine is both like and unlike practicing law

Deepak Gupta, MD

January 9, 2025Jan 9, 2025

The question is whether practicing medicine is like or unlike practicing law. Only those in distress come in search of physicians and lawyers. Thus, their clients need healing as well as protection from the ills in their innate systems or in the systems surrounding them. The absolute dependence or even surrender of those in need during times of need provides their physicians as well as their lawyers the moral high …

Physician

How pre-procedure optimization could save your life—and the economy

Deepak Gupta, MD

September 27, 2024Sep 27, 2024

The term "organ harvesting," once a misnomer for organ procurement after organ donation, echoes in the phrase "procedure harvesting," which could be an inadvertent misnomer for procedure procurement following procedure donation. Who knows if some may even suggest preemptive extracorporeal…

The term “organ harvesting,” once a misnomer for organ procurement after organ donation, echoes in the phrase “procedure harvesting,” which could be an inadvertent misnomer for procedure procurement following procedure donation. Who knows if some may even suggest preemptive extracorporeal membrane oxygenation when cardiac arrest seems imminent during an elective non-cardiac procedure? Regardless, while pre-procedure optimization is always a goal for elective procedure procurement—and may even be achievable in emergent …

Physician

Privacy protection after death: an ongoing dilemma

Deepak Gupta, MD

July 31, 2024Jul 31, 2024

Privacy protection does not cease to exist at death, as privacy laws protect information until 50 years post-mortem. So, why does the protected information of public figures often find its way into the public domain long before this embargoed period…

Firstly, the primary question is: What defines a public figure? Some individuals are public figures long before their deaths, while others become public figures at …

Conditions and Diseases

New standards for anesthesia in out-of-hospital Cesarean sections

Deepak Gupta, MD

July 20, 2024Jul 20, 2024

Unless planning to issue an update on practice guidelines for obstetric anesthesia, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), along with its subspecialty organization, the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP), should formulate a consensus statement for peri-anesthesia management during out-of-hospital cesarean sections (OHCS). Florida has become the first state to allow OHCS, an infrastructural relaxation for obstetric care that other states may follow. Whether the ensuing outcomes among pregnant …

Medications

To anesthetize, or not to anesthetize: a pervasive dilemma of the GLP-1 era

Deepak Gupta, MD

July 9, 2024Jul 9, 2024

Since the United States Food and Drug Administration approved exenatide in 2005, it took decades for the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) to identify and address perioperative safety concerns, if any, among patients using glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) such as exenatide. This delay could be due to several factors: GLP-1 RAs were initially used only for managing diabetes and later for obesity, and now potentially for a wide …

Physician

How mislabeling patients affects health care outcomes

Deepak Gupta, MD

June 23, 2024Jun 23, 2024

When we call out to deem a patient difficult regarding access-airway-anesthesia, we do not consider the procedure, provider, proceduralist, place, phase, payer, or player as difficult. Does this mean that only patient conditions make it difficult, with conditions surrounding the procedure, provider, proceduralist, place, phase, payer, or player never coming into play? Aren’t we putting the onus solely on the patient when we document all such experiences of difficulty only …

Physician

Why distracted detecting is the hidden threat to your health and safety

Deepak Gupta, MD

June 20, 2024Jun 20, 2024

Just like distracted driving, there can be a term called distracted detecting; however, when one delves further, one realizes that distracted driving itself is one form of distracted detecting. Distracted detecting can be understood through the prey-predator analogy within the animal kingdom, with particular relevance during vulnerable adolescence. This concept is detailed in books co-authored by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers, titled Zoobiquity: The Astonishing Connection Between Human and …

Physician

Why charm and competence are essential for career survival

Deepak Gupta, MD

June 13, 2024Jun 13, 2024

Charm and competence among providers should ideally be concordant, but they can sometimes be discordant, which should be evaluated and corrected if possible. This discordance isn’t limited to health care; it can also be observed in politics, during litigation, and within families. Charming politicians can sway followers, charming litigators can sway juries, and charming family members can influence their families. Whether or not their competence, or lack thereof, gets overlooked …

Physician

Medical debt-driven homelessness

Deepak Gupta, MD

March 3, 2024Mar 3, 2024

The fictional 2007 television story depicting the plight of a widow with two daughters who, as a family, became homeless due to medical debt incurred during her since-deceased husband's health care, is an eye-opener and heartbreaking. However, nowadays, the fact…

The fictional 2007 television story depicting the plight of a widow with two daughters who, as a family, became homeless due to medical debt incurred during her since-deceased husband’s health care, is an eye-opener and heartbreaking. However, nowadays, the fact is emulating that fiction when statistics of homelessness risk due to medical debt are bewildering and shocking.

As compared to credit card debt, where buyers can at least gauge the maximum …

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Medical debt-driven homelessness

Physician

The adversarial system in perioperative medicine

Deepak Gupta, MD

February 2, 2024Feb 2, 2024

It is always assumed that the prosecution and the defense in the adversarial system may be searching for the facts that can then discover the truth. However, the whole truth may always remain undiscovered when the complete facts may not get uncovered due to competitive differences among the prosecution and the defense. This unbalanced competitiveness may arise from the perceived power held by the prosecution’s law offices contrasting with the …

Physician

Sensitivity vs. sensibility in a modern world

Deepak Gupta, MD

January 3, 2024Jan 3, 2024

There may be a distinction between sensitivity and sensibility; however, these lines often blur and even overlap rapidly. Conducting oneself sensibly both at and outside of work automatically assumes that one’s sensitivity is well-attuned to the present times. Simultaneously, regularly refreshing sensitivity presumably ensures that one always carries oneself sensibly, both at and outside of work. Yet, it’s worth pondering: what is the origin of human common sense? Has our …