May

31

What ED Crisis? (And Other Random Thoughts)

May 31, 2007 | 36 Comments

Shake that Money Maker
They say there is a crisis in the Emergency Rooms and while I certainly see a little of its effects at my own program, the crisis is not universal. Some Emergency Departments compete for patients, at least this is my understanding from the numerous billboards I saw the other day as I [...]

May

27

Harvard Medical School, The Not Too Distant Future

May 27, 2007 | 25 Comments

Commander of the Devout
Like all good medical students, I await the arrival of the Mother Ship as promised and foretold by the Prophets in whose names we have dedicated our lives. But I have begun to doubt. The world goes on beyond the walls of our medical school. I catch brief glimpses of it over [...]

May

23

Other Medical Careers Part Three: Physician Assistants

May 23, 2007 | 53 Comments

Inspired By Actual Events
(House DO, one of our good blogfriends, has taken a hard look at the requirments of medical training and decided to divert to PA school. To him is this article dedicated-PB)
As an intern, I once rotated on a service that had a lot of Physician Assistants. One night on call I was [...]

May

20

Post-o-rama

May 20, 2007 | 39 Comments

Mission Creep
The conventional wisdom is that the American health care system is broken. This is the party line parroted by the various media organs of the dependocracy in their attempt to stampede an excitable public towards socialized medicine. Like a lot of the conventional wisdom, the idea of a broken health care system [...]

May

16

Is it Worth It?

May 16, 2007 | 66 Comments

(With a hat-tip to Hybrid Vigor for the idea-PB)
Dear Medical School Hopeful,
I wouldn’t presume to imply that you haven’t given your decision to apply to medical school a lot of thought. Of course you have. The application process alone will weed out anybody who is not completely serious. Still, you may have [...]

May

13

Hippocrates Calls for Close Air Support

May 13, 2007 | 26 Comments

Standardized Propaganda
I am often asked to reconcile my love for the Marine Corps and my support for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with the tenets of the Hippocratic Oath which, by conventional wisdom, seems to preclude a doctor from calling in an air strike.
There are many versions of the Hippocratic Oath and it is [...]

May

11

Sink or Swim: Call and The New Intern

May 11, 2007 | 21 Comments

(I had call on my first night as an intern almost two years ago and as of last week I am officially and forever done with call. It’s been a long two years and I won’t miss it. I’m working the 11PM to 9AM shift in the Emergency Department this month and I marvel at [...]

May

8

A Quick Note

May 8, 2007 | 67 Comments

100K
My hit counter tells me that I’ve had 100,000 unique visits to this blog in the last six months. Add that to the 120,000-or-so visits before I started using Sitemeter and that’s not bad for sixteen months of blogging. Readership is growing and I like to think it’s because I have a lot [...]

May

6

Other Medical Careers Part Two: Complementary and Alternative Medicine

May 6, 2007 | 84 Comments

Quacks Like a Duck
Almost everything about Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is bunk and its purveyors are at best deluded and at worst quacks and charlatans who would make the snake oil salesmen of olden days blush from shame. Maybe a hundred years ago you could make a case for magic potions and mysterious [...]

May

4

The Monkey’s Other Paw and Other Random Things

May 4, 2007 | 24 Comments

Grow a Pair
There he lies, six-foot-five inches of corn-fed American manhood, a horizontal slab of sinew and muscle with a chiseled chin, tousled hair, and perfect teeth whining like a little girl because the nurse is late with his pain medications.
For God’s sake buddy, didn’t you get the memo? Of manhood, stoicism is the [...]

May

3

Guilty Pleasure

May 3, 2007 | 16 Comments

(With apologies to Graham-PB)
AMA
Against the possibility of your thinking poorly of me, let me say at the outset that I did everything I was supposed to do and even a little more. I argued, cajoled, threatened, and I even told him the usual lies that keep people believing in our ability to cheat the [...]