The striking parallels between doctors and journalists

Physician
June 24, 2017

Once during my TV news days, I was feeling pretty good about myself during a three-hour drive to the Mayo Clinic. “I am so glad I don’t practice!” I crowed to my photographer. “Practicing physicians are so sad. They’ve lost their income, their autonomy, and the public’s respect.”

My photographer didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah,” he replied. “They sound just like you.”

By which he meant that as a journalist, I’d lost …

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The striking parallels between doctors and journalists

Advice for PCPs from Gene Siskel

Physician
June 4, 2017

When I was in television, I was friends with the late Gene Siskel (the film critic’s syndicated show would shoot in our Chicago CBS studio). Siskel would drop by my office to talk and get free medical advice.

Siskel was, you might say, frugal. I remember when I was in contract negotiations with CBS, my bosses couldn’t praise me enough — but the money wasn’t there. When I told Siskel about …

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Advice for PCPs from Gene Siskel

Physicians are low-hanging fruit. Here’s why.

Physician
May 22, 2017

When my children were growing up, I advised them, “Don’t choose any profession in which your worth is determined by knowing a body of information or using algorithmic thinking. If you do that, you’re toast.”

”Toast” because monopolies on information have been supplanted by the internet, and algorithmic thinking replaced by computers and artificial intelligence. Incredibly, this seismic shift in what society values has occurred in just a single generation.

And that’s …

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Physicians are low-hanging fruit. Here’s why.

Where will disrupted primary care physicians go?

Physician
March 3, 2017

As a physician and businessman, I wish the future looked better for PCPs. But history suggests things will get still worse.

The history of business teaches us disruptive innovation always starts from below. The “untouchable” market leader is threatened by a less expensive version of its own product. The smug incumbent ignores the unprofitable downscale threat. Then the new competitor decides to go upscale, is forced to innovate as a result, and …

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Where will disrupted primary care physicians go?

Young physicians: Don’t repeat my generation’s mistakes

Physician
February 7, 2017

My generation of physicians was much like yours.

My were also “the best.” We’d risen to the top of every academic pyramid: middle school, high school, college. We could be anything we wanted to be.

We chose medicine, partly for noble reasons. Our bodies were wondrous and we got to help people. But also for some not so noble reasons: the money was good, everyone would look up to us, and we’d …

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Young physicians: Don’t repeat my generation’s mistakes

Confessions of a former TV doctor

Physician
January 21, 2017

I was the “TV doctor” at the CBS, NBC, and ABC affiliates in Minnesota and Chicago for 25 years. I was on air several times a day and anchored my own news block.

I did some good. I organized a colon cancer early detection campaign while presenting a series on the illness. One-hundred thousand viewers picked up Hemoccult tests, 25,000 sent them in, and I received a plaque that says, “Thank you for …

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Confessions of a former TV doctor

Why physician engagement is code for physician control

Physician
January 10, 2017

Are physicians unruly children?

That’s the attitude I see at hospital C-suite meetings. (As in, “Our doctors are protesting our new unproven proton beam therapy center. How cute! They think they know how hospitals work: Even cuter, they think their opinion matters.”) Chuckles all around.

That smiling dismissiveness doesn’t surprise me. Call me cynical, but when people have power over other people, they become contemptuous. And in today’s world hospital executives have that power …

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Why physician engagement is code for physician control

Why doctors are rebelling against saving lives

Physician
December 22, 2016

When I was in medical school, “real” doctors saved lives. Period.

Specialists who focused on a patient’s quality of life, (the plastic surgeons, bariatric surgeons, holistic practitioners, infertility experts, etc.) were considered sellouts. (We won’t even consider the med school status of future psychiatrists.)

We disparaged these doctors because they could be saving lives and chose not to, because they were often paid (God forbid) out-of-pocket by their patients, and because they …

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Why doctors are rebelling against saving lives