For what seemed like an hour, I stood staring at the flat lines scrolling endlessly across my monitor in the OR. The once pulsatile waves, rendered useless and flat due to the absence of a beating heart. After a frenzied six hours of pouring blood into…
I am a cardiac anesthesiologist. I want to explain what anesthesiologists do, who we are, and why it is important for the public to know. Anesthesiologists are physicians. Anesthesiologists are the guardians of the operating room. Anesthesiologists are…
The definition of pimping in the medical field is different than the colloquial usage by artists like Jay-Z, Snoop, and Kendrick Lamar. Although most people are aware of pimping in the vernacular language (which will not be discussed further, I would s…
What has the medical community, once thought of as the “ultimate team,” finally come down to in 2019? The “back in my day” sigh I often hear from more senior physicians has inspired me to read several books about the history of medicine. As I devoured …
Donna Ferguson awoke in the resort city of Cancun before sunrise on a sweltering Saturday in July. She wasn’t headed to the beach. Instead, she walked down a short hallway from her Sheraton hotel and into Galenia Hospital. A little later that morning, …
On the face of it, this seems like a fairly simple business arrangement. My patients or their employers pay money to a health insurance corporation so they, in turn, have sufficient funds available to pay medical claims for services I render. That simp…
As a trauma surgeon, it’s my job to diagnose and fix the violent destruction of the human body. One of the questions I get asked very frequently is, “How do you deal with that?” My standard answer is, “After a while, you get used to it.” And while I re…
As a doctor that specifically deals with brain and spine surgeries, I have adopted a No Room for Error mentality in the operating room. I believe this same mentality can be helpful in making the best possible life decisions. What do I mean by No Room f…
The decision seemed straightforward. Bob McHenry’s heart was failing, and doctors recommended two high-risk surgeries to restore blood flow. Without the procedures, McHenry, 82, would die. The surgeon at a Boston teaching hospital ticked off the possib…
When Colorado legalized marijuana, it became a pioneer in creating new policies to deal with the drug. Now the state’s surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists are becoming pioneers of a different sort in understanding what weed may do to patients who g…
