How physicians can reclaim control over medical malpractice risks

Physician
May 26, 2025

In ancient times, there were oracles and soothsayers. In the 1950s, risk management becomes a science. Nevertheless, there are 85,000 medical malpractice lawsuits filed per year. They are problematic, not because they overwhelm court dockets, but because a disproportionate number of claims are either frivolous or, if meritorious, are not represented. Also, each physician, myself included, has an 8.5 percent chance per year of being sued for a bad result …

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How physicians can reclaim control over medical malpractice risks

Boost patient satisfaction with the power of fragrance

Physician
May 26, 2025

I have previously blogged about identifying your practice’s UVP or unique value proposition. This is based on differentiating your practice from others in the community or the region. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, workplaces are pumping fragrances into offices to make the offices smell better. The article focused on real estate properties in Manhattan trying to lure renters back to the workplace after the pandemic. …

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Boost patient satisfaction with the power of fragrance

Rethinking addiction treatment: contingency management and the future of recovery [PODCAST]

Podcast
May 25, 2025
YouTube video

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Health care executive Traci Sweet discusses her article, “The role of contingency management in addiction treatment.” She makes a compelling case for the increased use of contingency management—an evidence-based approach utilizing positive …

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Rethinking addiction treatment: contingency management and the future of recovery [PODCAST]

What Adam Smith would say about America’s for-profit health care

Policy
May 25, 2025

Over 80 percent of people are discontented with their medical insurance, whether provided by the government, their employer, or a commercial company. Common complaints are cost, increasing prices, and limited or rejected coverage. Regardless of the insurance’s source, we, the citizens, pay the bill through higher co-payments, deductibles, or premiums. Thus, their future payments increase when people request increased coverage for specific treatments, tests, or conditions.

However, individual desires are not …

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What Adam Smith would say about America’s for-profit health care

Why self-care must become medicine’s new standard

Physician
May 25, 2025

We were taught that sacrificing ourselves is noble. That resilience is enduring. And that suffering and struggling are valiant.

We were taught rest is optional, complacent, lazy—something for other, less busy, less important people.

We were also taught to see “self-care” as somewhat indulgent.

Self-care is often thought of as something earned. A guilty pleasure.

Even the words commonly used in medicine to describe caring for ourselves—”self-care”—sound indulgent.

“Caring for ourselves as well” is not …

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Why self-care must become medicine’s new standard

How societal narratives trap us and how to escape

Physician
May 25, 2025

Lose weight and you’ll be happy,
They say …

I wasn’t happy,
I was exhausted and depleted.

You’re so disciplined,
They say …

As I starved myself
And had to earn my food.

I wish I could have your problem,
They say …

Brainwashed into thinking,
Smaller is better.

How do you always eat so “healthy”?
They ask …

While my list of “safe” foods
Grows shorter and shorter.

As I dream of being free
And escaping the prison in my mind …

They wonder how to be …

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How societal narratives trap us and how to escape

How a homeless mathematician taught me the true meaning of success

Physician
May 25, 2025

I was, without a doubt, in a desperate place—going back to school after not taking a math course in over six years and attempting to study calculus. It was as stressful as it sounds. Like so many of the students in my post-baccalaureate cohort, we deeply valued our education at this point—which is not surprising, considering we all had to work jobs to pay for it. But luckily, I had …

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How a homeless mathematician taught me the true meaning of success

Registered dietitians on your care team [PODCAST]

Podcast
May 24, 2025
YouTube video

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Registered dietitian Ava Safir and physician advocate Kim Downey discuss their article, “Why patients need a registered dietitian on their health care team.” They highlight the often-overlooked yet crucial role registered dietitians …

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Registered dietitians on your care team [PODCAST]

Bureaucracy over care: How the U.S. health care system lost its way

Physician
May 24, 2025

The health care system, in theory, operates on one fundamental principle: to prioritize patient welfare. Yet, contemporary systems in many regions, particularly the United States, have increasingly veered off course, entangling themselves in a jungle of bureaucracy, regulation, and profit-driven motives that obscure the vital role patients play as the focal point of care. The result is a system riddled with inefficiencies, frustration, and barriers to optimal health care delivery.

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Bureaucracy over care: How the U.S. health care system lost its way

ER threats aren’t rare anymore—they’re routine

Physician
May 24, 2025

I read Dr. Harry Severance’s recent piece, “Violence in health care: Why doctors and nurses are leaving,” with a sinking feeling of recognition. He’s right. Health care is becoming the most dangerous profession in America. Violence is no longer rare or shocking—it’s something every physician and nurse now half-expects at some point in their career.

I still remember an early shift in the ER when I was stitching up a …

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ER threats aren’t rare anymore—they’re routine

JFK warned us about physical fitness. Sixty years later, we’re still not listening.

Conditions
May 24, 2025

“We are under-exercised as a nation; we look instead of play; we ride instead of walk.”
—John F. Kennedy, Sports Illustrated, 1960

In 1960, then-President-elect John F. Kennedy issued a striking warning: Americans were becoming physically unfit, and this trend threatened not just individual health, but the vitality of the nation itself. He saw physical activity as foundational to our strength—not just as a people, but as a country. Over sixty years …

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JFK warned us about physical fitness. Sixty years later, we’re still not listening.

The silent threat in health care layoffs

Tech
May 24, 2025

The health care industry rightfully remains vigilant against external cyber threats, with the Director-General of the World Health Organization even labeling file loss from ransomware as potentially “issues of life and death.” Patient safety and the sanctity of confidential health information are paramount—which are also the very reasons health care organizations are prime targets for malicious actors. But as economic headwinds lead to corporate layoffs and government budget cuts dominate …

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The silent threat in health care layoffs

Why true listening is crucial for future health care professionals [PODCAST]

Podcast
May 23, 2025
YouTube video

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Certified coach Kathleen Muldoon discusses her article, “The cost of presence: a lesson in listening.” She recounts a poignant experience observing a health care student disengaged during a powerful presentation by a …

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Why true listening is crucial for future health care professionals [PODCAST]

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Surviving kidney disease and reforming patient care [PODCAST]

Podcast
May 22, 2025
YouTube video

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Health care executive and patient advocate Aja Best discusses her article, “How early CKD diagnosis can save lives: a transplant survivor’s journey.” She shares her harrowing personal experience with a delayed diagnosis …

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Surviving kidney disease and reforming patient care [PODCAST]

Why we fear being forgotten more than death itself

Physician
May 22, 2025

It’s not the easiest question to ask aloud—especially in medicine, where we pronounce death but rarely reflect on it.

We chart it. Certify it. Explain it.
But what does it mean to die?

For most of us, the word carries a double weight. It means to stop biologically. To cease. To end.
But it also means to vanish. To be forgotten. To be no longer seen, needed, or named.

As a surgeon, I saw death …

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Why we fear being forgotten more than death itself

My journey from misdiagnosis to living fully with APBD

Conditions
May 22, 2025

I have always been a performer at heart, starting with theater in school. For 28 years, I was a law professor at Indiana University in Indianapolis, and teaching gave me a captive audience. Beyond the classroom, I have always been passionate about music. I play the guitar and sing, and back in the day I was part of a band. I was also a distance runner and dreamed of completing …

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My journey from misdiagnosis to living fully with APBD

Antimicrobial resistance: a public health crisis that needs your voice [PODCAST]

Podcast
May 21, 2025
YouTube video

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Health care public relations leader Melanie Doupé Gaiser discusses her article, “Antimicrobial resistance needs a publicist.” She highlights antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as an urgent and deadly public health crisis that is not …

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Antimicrobial resistance: a public health crisis that needs your voice [PODCAST]

Why a fourth year will not fix emergency medicine’s real problems

Education
May 21, 2025

The field of emergency medicine (EM) is at a crossroads. Faced with rising burnout, a constantly changing health care landscape, and an evolving trend in unfilled residency positions, the specialty is now grappling with another proposed structural change: A proposed mandatory fourth year. While the idea has been periodically debated over the past two decades, it gained new momentum with proposed changes to the ACGME Program Requirements for Graduate Medical …

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Why a fourth year will not fix emergency medicine’s real problems

Why shared decision-making in medicine often fails

Conditions
May 21, 2025

In numerous writings and venues regarding physician practice, the claim is made that “physician education is lacking in nutrition, geriatrics, care for non-cisgender people, relating to patients in general, cultural respect, equitable treatment, etc.” While all of these suggestions have merit, to what extent would they lengthen the already most extended medical school curriculum among developed countries? Or would those who advocate for these additions propose that they replace parts …

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Why shared decision-making in medicine often fails

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