The McLaughlin 360 Evaluation: preparation (part one) Have you ever heard the expression, “The truth will set you free”? Well, it might. But before it sets you free, it’s probably going to piss you off. If you are seriously interested…
Category: surgery
A young surgeon’s night: from calm to chaos
When you are a young academic general surgeon, even the nights are sometimes good. A good on-call night unfolds something like this. You might have spent the day working in the operating room or in the clinic seeing patients. Your on-call typically beg…
A surgeon’s journey with Taylor Swift [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! Join us as we sit down with Andrea L. Merrill, an assistant professor of surgery, to explore the powerful intersection of music and surgery. From her early days as a train…
Corporatization of medicine: Are patients and physicians the losers?
Despite technological and pharmaceutical improvements in the advancement of medicine, many changes that have occurred in the delivery of medicine during my 15 years of private practice in plastic surgery have had detrimental consequences for both patie…
Anesthesia is not my name: Knowing each other’s name improves results in the OR
As an anesthesiologist, I recall countless occasions when colleagues from the other side of the drape addressed me, like, “Anesthesia, did the patient receive antibiotics?” or “Anesthesia, I need more muscle relaxation here!” Es…
Burned by the system, sparked by surgery: a resident’s odyssey
“Medicine is a form of art.” Those are the words my grandfather told me as I embarked on my journey through medical school. Medicine resembles literature; we, physicians, enter into people’s lives, and we become part of their life tal…
If surgery is so precise, why are we leaving outcomes up to chance?
It is well known that today there is significant variability in surgical outcomes – not only in different parts of the world, but even within the hospital. And, little understanding as to why. While video is becoming a key component of surgery, u…
A Surgeon’s Knot: the realities of a surgical internship [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! We sit down with William Lynes, a urologist and author of A Surgeon’s Knot, as we delve into the captivating narrative of the highs and lows of a surgical internship…
Heart-stopping brain surgery: a surgeon’s harrowing dilemma
An excerpt from of Paint and Pancakes. The epicenter of Jane’s cancer occupied some very expensive real estate between Broca’s area and the motor strip. Her ability to speak and form coherent words resided in Broca’s. A little further…
How a ruptured spleen saved a life
Of the many thousand operations I did in my surgical career, most were life-improving rather than life-saving. To me, life-saving implies immediate or imminent risk of death: gunshot wounds, stabbings, gastrointestinal bleeding or perforations, punctur…
