A familiar ding echoes from blue scrub pants. My conditioned frontal cortex reflexively shoots my hand to the back pocket. Fingers encircle a black smartphone. A ricochet of notification vibration still tickles my right buttock. Several semi-autonomous…
A familiar ding echoes from blue scrub pants. My conditioned frontal cortex reflexively shoots my hand to the back pocket. Fingers encircle a black smartphone. A ricochet of notification vibration still tickles my right buttock. Several semi-autonomous…
An excerpt from Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General. In spring of 1946 the young Koop was sent to Boston for several months to spend time with the giants of the nascent field of pediatric surgery, William E. Ladd (1880–1967), and his traine…
In his deluge of executive orders, Trump once again is focusing on health care cost transparency. Efforts to open the lock on health care costs began in 2019 under the Trump administration with mandated publication of hospital price lists, called charg…
An excerpt from Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General. “I have learned that, when an idea’s time has come—and it is on your watch—you must seize the moment.”– CEK, Glasgow speech It would take C. Everett Koop, M.D., Sc…
Before a discussion of entitlements and welfare programs is started, a primer on the fiscal situation of the country seems appropriate. Service on the national debt is now second only to Social Security as a government expenditure. The debt is now abou…
Health care systems worldwide are grappling with access, efficiency, and sustainability challenges. In Canada, the debate over public versus private care is especially charged, and nowhere is this more evident than in Quebec. The province has the highe…
The tragic and shocking murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO has ignited a nationwide conversation about the flaws in the health care system, often accompanied by misdirected anger toward physicians. The rhetoric suggesting that physician salaries are th…
The moment I was born, my future was decided for me—I was going to be a doctor. My mother had made up her mind, and from that point forward, my path seemed clear: medical school, residency, patient care for life. That was the blueprint. For many physic…
In the fall of 2005, an invisible threat swept across the digital computer game World of Warcraft, spreading panic, overwhelming entire cities, and leaving countless players scrambling for answers. It wasn’t a new raid boss or a cunning video gam…
