Last week on Twitter I watched a surgeon ask if it was okay to say that he loved to operate. But as a surgeon do you really need someone's permission to love surgery? A bizarre question on one level. Understandable in the context of online culture. So how have we reached a point where a surgeon can’t express that his chosen work is something he ... Continue Reading about Do You Need Permission to Love Surgery?
Lessons From a Botched Telemedicine Encounter
This week Ernest Quintana, a 78-year-old man with lung disease, was told by a doctor on a telemedicine encounter that he did not have long to live. Caught on phone video the family took to the media where it has triggered a national conversation about conversations. Here are 3 takeaways from this case: Hold critical conversations in person When possible. Critical ... Continue Reading about Lessons From a Botched Telemedicine Encounter
Epic Parody
It was only a matter of time before we saw the appearance of an Epic parody account. Check out EpicParodyEMR on Twitter. More importantly, check out how it gets shared. It’s short format red meat for angry doctors. Parody accounts tell a bigger story about physicians than any documentary or long-form New York Times article. Online culture has created a million ... Continue Reading about Epic Parody
Against Advanced Practitioners – Medicine’s Social Pushback
Recently I’ve been getting salty Twitter remarks about my ‘sympathetic views’ toward non-MD health care providers. These comments against advanced practitioners come from physicians working to take back the night and restore medicine to its rightful hierarchy. One confronted me with the absurd question: Are you willing to turn all of your family’s care over to ... Continue Reading about Against Advanced Practitioners – Medicine’s Social Pushback
DotMD 2019 – Celebrating Medicine’s Human Side
It’s no secret that medicine is changing. Technology is redefining everything about what it is to be a clinician. Precision medicine is reducing the human to its most fundamental parts. Clinical industrialization is reducing physicians to line workers. And the stats on burnout among health professionals show that we’re having a hard time with the ... Continue Reading about DotMD 2019 – Celebrating Medicine’s Human Side
Physician Anti-Semitism – Where’s the Physician Outrage?
Earlier this month a Cleveland clinic medical resident was fired for a long trail of social media posts laced with anti-Semitism. While the story caught the attention of the national media, I found the response by the online physician community to be anemic relative to other incidents. Surprising, really. Because it seems physician activists of all backgrounds and ... Continue Reading about Physician Anti-Semitism – Where’s the Physician Outrage?