Author's posts
You’re a doctor when you’re not giving anesthesia?
One recent afternoon in the GI endoscopy suite (not my favorite place to work, but that’s a topic for another day), I walked up to the bedside of my next patient and introduced myself as I always do. “Hi,” I said, holding up my name badge for the patie…
Why it may be time for doctors to unionize
Remember the dark days of the pandemic, when the true risk of caring for COVID patients started to become clear? Remember when you could be censured by a nursing supervisor or administrator for wearing a mask in public areas lest you frighten patients …
How the board certification exams infantilize resident training
Not long ago, my patient in a complex thoracic case developed progressive bradycardia followed by a malignant-looking multifocal atrial arrhythmia that didn’t generate any blood pressure. “Get out some epinephrine!” I said to my resident, who was stand…
It’s time to redesign anesthesia care delivery
As we orient our brand-new, fresh-faced CA-1 residents to the operating room each year, I ask this question. Has anyone explained to them that much of what they’ll need to learn in the first couple of months is how to be a nurse? We watch them struggle…
How could a patient die from anesthesia for a colonoscopy?
Every death related to anesthesia is a tragedy; even more so when a minor procedure such as a colonoscopy leads to a completely unexpected death. Everyone knows that open heart surgery carries a mortality risk, but few of us walk into the hospital for …
Will women in medicine survive COVID-19?
How are two-career households with children — let alone single-parent households — going to manage with daycare centers and schools closed, perhaps for a long time to come? What damage will this do to career progression and earning potential if one par…
An elegy for giant medical conventions
The annual meeting of my profession’s national society last fall may have been the last old-school, convention-size, professional meeting I will ever attend. I could be wrong, but it may mark the end of an era. Disruptive change to the convention busin…
Please tell us your cosmetic secrets. We promise not to tell.
I live and work in Los Angeles, one of the plastic surgery capitals of the world. Quite a few of my patients have “had a little work done” — the blandly euphemistic term you’ll hear for plastic surgery makeovers of all kinds. That’s fine. Plastic surge…
Keep attacking doctors: What the New York Times gets wrong about surprise medical bills
Do you think I went too far in my last blog post, calling out some journalists as “pontificating parasites” who love nothing more than to slam physicians and blame us for the cost of health care? If you do, then you must not have read Elisabeth Rosenth…
Keep insulting doctors, and good luck finding a physician in 10 years
If physicians are “muggers” and co-conspirators in “taking money away from the rest of us,” then journalists and economists are pontificating parasites who produce no goods or services of any real value. I don’t think either is true, but the recent att…
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