Category: surgery

Does your OR case scheduling process need a revamp?

I’ve been in the health care industry for over a decade. Starting a few years ago, I embarked on a new project: building a case scheduling platform specifically for anesthesia staff. I’ll be the first to say that I never envisioned myself b…

Does your OR case scheduling process need a revamp?

I’ve been in the health care industry for over a decade. Starting a few years ago, I embarked on a new project: building a case scheduling platform specifically for anesthesia staff. I’ll be the first to say that I never envisioned myself b…

It’s called crying and it’s normal

Doctors treat people in all types of situations. Life or death. Sometimes both. Babies die, children die, and teenagers die. Women die. Men die. Sometimes you even have the misfortune of delivering a stillborn. Everyone experiences death, but for docto…

Big Joe: living proof of a surgeon’s fallibility

When I think of Big Joe, I see his overalls and how he filled them. And how a couple of months after I operated on him, there was room for both of us in there. Big Joe: farmer, salt of the earth, tough, stoic. And now, bright orange. My initial recomme…

The perioperative surgical home: a model to tackle today’s pressing health care issues

A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com. The health care landscape has never been more complex. A deadly and enduring pandemic; health care delivery challenges that leave some communities at higher risk for…

Singing doctors in the operating room

An excerpt from Fifty Years a Doctor: The Journey of Sickness and Health, Four Plagues and the Pandemic. It took me years to fully realize what a unique residency program I had enjoyed in my one-year general surgical training in Honolulu. Early in this…

Your anesthesiologist cares for you [PODCAST]

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! “It’s one of the hard things about anesthesiology. A window opens, you work like all get out, doing all sorts of things while the breeze blows in, then it’s shut again. Sometimes, you…

The heartbreak and joy of missions-based pain medicine: a pain physician’s perspective

A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com. Approximately 30 percent of the world’s population reports living with some form of pain, ranging from headaches to joint pain to cancer-related pain. Unfortunately,…

The ramparts of the neurosurgeon’s mind were unassailable

An excerpt from Azazel’s Public House. Pete tried to invade Tommy’s brain and force an oops moment. But the ramparts of the neurosurgeon’s mind were unassailable. Clancy, unaware he was battling on two fronts, tried to spare any brain…

Giving up the knife: Saying goodbye to surgery

This year, I stopped doing surgery — giving up the knife, so to speak. It wasn’t an easy decision to make. I’ve been a surgeon for 32 years since graduating from medical school. It’s been a distinct part of who I am for most of my lif…