I saw a patient recently with a new brain tumor. She came with an internet search that suggested she had five years to live. I cannot beat that predictive confidence. The best I could do was to poke holes in the assumptions that servers and algorithms had made, to question the arc of the future, and finally to tell her that the tumor was small, likely benign, with minimal effect …
Why the internet can’t replace your doctor
It was a hot afternoon, but no dog day humidity yet. I was driving back from a satellite office when our nurse practitioner called. A patient with a condition we’d seen many times before, a brain hemorrhage, her consciousness waning. The CT scan showed blood in the ventricles obstructing the flow of cerebrospinal fluid.
The pressure was building and our patient was dying. She needed an external ventricular drain to relieve …
My patient and I were born on the same day. It took a tragedy to bring us back together.
In his 1862 novel, Fathers and Sons, Ivan Turgenev describes (spoiler alert) a death from sepsis in excruciating detail. There is nothing to do but comfort the man in the throes of mortality, his parents, and unrequited love at his bedside.
Today, thankfully, modern technology and processes can deliver a quick diagnosis and treatment, often saving the patient’s life and about two weeks of brutal suffering. Technology is essential, but attention …
When new technology is no match for old-school medical tests
“We need to shampoo the patients’ hair,” said Kristen, a physician assistant with a two-foot flaxen rope of her own. She’s an authority. Operating room nurse Jess seconded the idea. Between the two of them advocating, it needed to happen.
Somehow for the last 23 years, as a man with short hair, I’d always considered a rinse with water or peroxide to be sufficient to clean a patient’s scalp and hair …
How washing hair taught me to be a better doctor
Lots of people write about how “doctors work so hard.” But let’s look at it from an economics and value-creation perspective.
I’m a neurosurgeon, so you know I do pretty well financially, but how much value am I adding to society? Here are a few examples:
1. A mail carrier couldn’t work because of a herniated lumbar disc. We’ll figure he makes $50,000/year. I operated on him; he goes back to work. …
Think doctors make too much money? Think again.
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