If James Watson’s chemistry won him a Nobel Prize for unraveling the double helix, his recent interview published from Britain in the Sunday Times promoting his new book “Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science” demonstrates how the pseudoscience trap can generate appalling... Read more →

One of the inherent problems with the field of Surgery is that aside from emergency surgery, surgical indications can be somewhat nebulous. If you are a victim of trauma and in a life and death situation, a surgeon can do surgery on you in order to save your life if you are not able to make medical decisions.... Read more →

Some people have questioned why I blog as a physician and why I blog anonymously. For those of you who haven’t kept up with the medical news, there have been a handful of lawsuits recently where physicians blogged about their patients anonymously. In one case, a physician was being sued for malpractice... Read more →

I’ve been helping a friend look for health and dental insurance these past few weeks. As a physician employed by a hospital, I get insurance as a benefit of my employment. Essentially, it is a corporate type of insurance that is paid for by my employer. Anybody who works for my hospital gets the... Read more →

Recently I heard about a patient who was involved in a motor vehicle accident. He suffered a major pelvic injury and required surgery to fix his pelvis. His only other medical history was that he suffered from significant anxiety and panic disorder. A few days after his surgery he became very agitated... Read more →

… or if it’s half right, which half? Warning: If you want a rant, filled with gross generalizations about psychiatry, this isn’t one. If you’ve ever given or received the gift of a psychiatric diagnosis, odds are there was something seriously wrong with it. Research has shown... Read more →

Who is neurodiverse? If you listen to the clinicians involved in brain scanning, the question is, “Who isn’t?” The definition of neurodiversity may come down to the line between, “how diverse?” and, “how much stigma?” Those of us who are diverse enough to lose... Read more →

I don’t think I’ve ever written that much about the workplace in the field of medicine. It’s something that has always bothered me at some level but I’ve come to accept as an inevitable evil that could not be changed. In medicine, everybody is your boss. It’s unlike any... Read more →

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) of 2007 finally overcame the republican opposition in recent years, and got through the House of the Representatives. With a change in the recent composition of the senate, there is a good chance it would get through there as well. In the recent hearing... Read more →

It isn’t simply about paying nearly obscene sums for your haircut, or ordering your theta meditation-delta sleep system pack from Amazon.com. It’s about creating an image of yourself as an exceptionally groomed specimen, dressed and odored to kill. Nothings wrong with that at a personal level.... Read more →

Internet chat rooms are ablaze with speculations about the exact nature of the medical condition that allowed Paris Hilton to spend her remaining term of “imprisonment” in her Hollywood Hills mansion rather than the county jail. Whether it was the jail itself which was at risk of being contaminated... Read more →