Think Much; Publish Little

November 11, 2011

Lately I’ve been reading about medical education reform.  I found this quote from Abraham Flexner, “Think much; publish little.”  Ironic given that this is the man who’s early 20th century disruption of medical education spawned modern academic medicine and its adopted credo, “publish or perish.”  It seems the idea of publishing less never took hold in [...]

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Typing as a Critical Physician Skill

November 9, 2011

I always loved to type.  It started in high school with typing class.  We were told that typing was critical for college term papers.  I liked it so much that I took advanced typing.  It was myself and 12 girls with Farrah Fawcett hair.  Heaven. Fast forward to 2011.  My interface with the medical record [...]

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There’s Never Been a Better Time to Be a Doctor

November 5, 2011

There’s never been a better time to be a doctor.  There’s never been a time when we have the voice we have. We have a publishing portal to the world.  We can put what we know into audio, video or text where it can live forever.  We can teach, influence, sell, reassure, connect, curate and [...]

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Rage Against the Machine

October 31, 2011

I was in an elevator at Texas Children’s Hospital this weekend where there were a number of people looking at their smart phones.  An older gentleman in the elevator remarked shaking his head, “I remember a time when people used to talk.” Actually, no one talked in elevators.  We’ve always stood the same direction and [...]

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Cut and Paste Medicine

October 29, 2011

I saw it begin to happen in the ’90′s.  Residents came to rounds with their daily notes produced on a word processor.  The notes were impressive.  Legible, lengthy and meticulously detailed at first glance. Then I started to notice a pattern.  The impressive notes began to look very much alike.  The thorough exam varied little [...]

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The Death of the Medical Internet Cafe

October 22, 2011

Is it the end of the internet café at medical meetings?  Has the sponsored kiosk with ‘free access to the world wide web’ run its course?  I remember the day when there were lines at machines like this.  We clamored to pick up our email.  Now email and other inputs reach some 80% of doctors [...]

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Prometheus Labs and Precision Medicine

October 21, 2011

If you want a glimpse at a company putting precision medicine into practice look no further than Prometheus Labs.  They make diagnostic products for personalized care in digestive disease and oncology.  I use their products to diagnose and target therapy in children with inflammatory bowel diseases (crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis). IBD offers a nice [...]

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The Digital Physician

October 20, 2011

While most of us fail to see it, but doctors are changing.  We’re changing as a result of the social and technological innovation.  In 2050 what we do and how we do it will be very different from what we did at the turn of the century.   We’re evolving from analog to digital. I [...]

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Evernote as Digital Personal Archive

October 19, 2011

Looking back over over my life I regret that I have little record of my personal thoughts and ideas.  Lots of writing but little record of what I was going through, what I was thinking or the spaces I occupied.  There’s nothing to mark my day-to-day life.  Sure, I have pictures of major events – [...]

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Book Notes: Uncertainty

October 16, 2011

I’ve been feeling a little uncertain recently.  I’ve got some new projects on the horizon that represent some very different directions for me.  So I read Uncertainty by Jonathan Fields.  It’s as if the book was written just for me. Uncertainty is written to give you an understanding of your own creative process.  It offers [...]

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