Matthew's Blog
Word-nest: A Single Word Definition of Haiku
In the forward to The Haiku Handbook, I read a lovely term : word-nest. Some word-nests come easily. … That is what haiku is all about, It teaches us to build a nest of words to protect our inspiration until a reader can experience it in his or her own way as...
Tweeting And The Hippocratic Oath
Take a moment to read this part of the Hippocratic Oath: Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I...
The Spiritual Risk of Twitter
I occasionally blog about Twitter, sometimes about its potential benefits as a tool for healthcare interventions, (see my recent post Twitter As A Proxy Metric For Institutional Digital Trust), sometimes as an emotional tool (see my post Tweeting To Destroy), and...
My New Toy—A Creative Lever?
We are all familiar with this quote by Archimedes: "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." Well, perhaps it's the engineer in me (I was an engineer long before I attended medical school), but I’ve always been...
What If Patagonia’s Values Were Healthcare’s Values?
Let’s take a look at Patagonia’s Core Values: Build the best productOur criteria for the best product rests on function, repairability, and, foremost, durability. Among the most direct ways we can limit ecological impacts is with goods that last for generations or can...
Healthcare Institutions’ Definitions of Health?
Most healthcare institutions (or “health care” institutions, a term now in vogue) don't define what they mean by “health.” I am not sure which is worse. They know but won’t say. Or they don’t know.
I Am Cassandra
God! a new sight! a net, a snare of hell,Set by her hand--herself a snare more fellA wedded wife, she slays her lord,Helped by another hand!Ye powers, whose hateOf Atreus' home no blood can satiate,Raise the wild cry above the sacrifice abhorred!Cassandra - from...
How I Created (maybe?) a Physician Ikigai Dyad
I recently attended an excellent healthcare conference. It was an expansive conference intellectually, one in which I learned quite a lot. It was also a very good conference socially (despite being on Zoom) where I was able to establish (and re-establish) some...
A Jewel of a Tweet From a BigHealth Corporation
Today, I want to discuss this one tiny jewel of a tweet by Optum, one of the largest healthcare organizations in the world. It's a tweet which has stuck with me for years, mostly because I think it is indicative of what large corporations can do with social media when...