Everyone's looking for the Uber of healthcare. The ideal is a button that makes everything right. Most aspiring health care Ubers amount to a convenience for the worried well positioned as brilliant disruption. Attention and social dialog surrounding such 'innovations' are fueled almost exclusively by fantasy. Sensational solutions are less about real problems ... Continue Reading about One Button Medicine
Can We Have Sympathy for Robots?
Boston Dynamics recently showed off its latest robot dog: Spot. As a means of showcasing the dog's agility, he's kicked by an employee. Berci Mesko remarked on the robot cruelty: I feel bad when the guy kicks the robot dog. The way we'll treat robots represents what we are like inside. In her book, Alone Together, MITs Sherry Turkle calls this alterity, the ability ... Continue Reading about Can We Have Sympathy for Robots?
Physicians as Mediators
Physicians were once the sole mediators of what patients understood about their health. When we wanted to know something, we went to the doctor. And what we understood was limited to what the doctor knew. There was nothing between us and an answer. Not so much anymore. As doctors we've evolved as mediators of the things that help us with answers. Instead of ... Continue Reading about Physicians as Mediators
Theranos and the Media Hype Cycle
Theranos has emerged as a cautionary tale in digital health. The darling of modern diagnostics, it turns out that things aren’t what they seem. Of course, Elizabeth Holmes was just trying to make a buck. That’s her job. But let's talk about the people who should have been asking the hard questions. The real story is about the media that built Theranos. On the ... Continue Reading about Theranos and the Media Hype Cycle
Medical Knowledge at 2x Speed
I had coffee with a medical student this week. A former Rice University student and alumnus of the Medical Futures Lab, we caught up to recap his first year of medical school. Among other things we talked about learning. And like most medical students, his process had come to involve video at 2-3x speed. What was more interesting is how it had come to influence his ... Continue Reading about Medical Knowledge at 2x Speed
The SmartPhrase as Medicine’s Old Technology
I’ve been thinking about SmartPhrases recently. For the uninformed, the SmartPhrase is a pre-fabricated bit of clinical language used in EHR documentation. We use SmartPhrases to enter frequently used language. It makes life in front of an EHR (EPIC specifically) easier. The SmartPhrase has evolved as the elemental unit of the electronic health record. These ... Continue Reading about The SmartPhrase as Medicine’s Old Technology