Zubin Damania, MD

The truth behind that Baltimore patient dumping video

Physician

January 26, 2018

A young woman stands in the freezing cold outside an urban Baltimore hospital. The woman, covered only by a thin hospital gown, moans incoherently at the man capturing her suffering on cellphone video. As seen on the now-viral video, she’d been left there by security personnel employed by the supposed place of healing just a few yards away. It hurts to watch.

Mass …

A love letter to those on the primary care journey

Zubin Damania, MD

Physician

August 6, 2016

We are standing at a crossroads in health care. Behind us lies a long-lost, nostalgia-tinged world of unfettered provider autonomy, sacred doctor-patient relationships, and a laser-like focus on the art and humanity of medicine. This was the world of my father, an immigrant and primary care physician in rural California. The world of Health 1.0.

While many still pine for these “good old days” of medicine, we shouldn’t forget that those days weren’t really …

We need to demand technology that lets doctors be doctors

Zubin Damania, MD

Health Technology

February 1, 2016

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away … what an uncannily accurate description of how it feels to practice in our very own “modern” health care system. In a world brimming over with exponential tech advances — supercomputer smartphones with user interfaces an embryo could master, an open Internet backbone that connects us across continents and cultures — our health care universe languishes with software that’s …

This epic EHR video may save our relationship with patients #LetDoctorsBeDoctors

Zubin Damania, MD

Health Technology

October 19, 2015

I have a love-hate relationship with the electronic health record (EHR).

To be precise, it’s 90 percent hate, 6 percent love. The missing 4 percent? That would be the percentage of time spent on the phone with tech support trying to figure out which order set I have to use to input percentages.

I’ve been in practice long enough to straddle the transition from paper … to even more paper (thanks EHR, you’re the …

Ain’t the way to die: The stories that this physician will never forget

Zubin Damania, MD

Physician

August 14, 2015

Like so many other medical professionals, I felt voiceless in the face of a gargantuan health care non-system built to do things to people, rather than for people. But after a decade of hospital practice, my “cry for help” looked slightly different than the typical midlife crisis: It involved the creation of a somewhat ridiculous blue-scrubbed rapping doctor alter ego. “ZDoggMD” could …

An organic effort to reboot healthcare

Zubin Damania, MD

Physician

April 30, 2014

For the better part of a decade, I practiced inpatient hospital medicine at a large academic center (the name isn’t important, but it rhymes with Afghanistan … ford).

I used to play a game with the med students and housestaff: Let’s estimate how many of our inpatients actually didn’t need hospitalization, had they simply received effective outpatient preventative care. Over the years, our totals were almost never less than 50%.

For my …

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An organic effort to reboot healthcare

Call Day from ZDoggMD

Zubin Damania, MD

Video

August 6, 2011

What’s it like to be on call? Hospitalist ZDoggMD knows.

Call Day from ZDoggMD

Immunize! [VIDEO] from ZDoggMD

Zubin Damania, MD

Video

May 15, 2011

Another great one from ZDoggMD. Enjoy.

I really wanna immunize so frickin’ bad
Protect you from those germs you’ve never had
Don’t want you to catch the mumps–meningitis too
Pertussis, hepatitis or the flu.

But everywhere I turn my eyes,
The internet is spreading lies.
So many parents scared by fairy tales and hate
I need to educate, so that I can vaccinate.

Immunize! [VIDEO] from ZDoggMD