Matthew's Blog
Morning Journaling, Haiku, and A Joint Native American Healer/Western Physician Podcast?
Here’s how I used this morning’s journaling time (see the results above) to create a small idea for a podcast. Note the odd train of thought, as indicated by arrows: First I had it in my mind I was going to write a small haiku ⇒Should I use a single haiku for a blog...
Does Your Healthcare Institution Own Your Blood Pressure?
Patients have a fluid in their body called blood, which, because of the pumping action of the heart through the arteries cause cyclic transient pressure changes in these arteries. When a nurse physically puts a blood pressure cuff on you they are using a tool called a...
Should I Read or Write at the Stable?
Twice a week, every Monday and Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m., I drive my wife to her stable and wait for her to finish, giving me roughly two hours of downtime. Although I occasionally play around with my photography there (see my photo above of one of the more...
What’s The New Covid Battlefield Topology? It’s Topology!
In my recent blog post Sun Tzu, CoVid, And Healthcare Executives, I suggested that healthcare executives don’t understand the current CoVid battlefield. We are no longer fighting CoVid in the lab, we are fighting it on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Here are...
Wicked Problems and Covid19
There is a nice summary of wicked problems in Harvard Business Review . "Strategy as a Wicked Problem”—Harvard Business Review. 86: 98-101 which suggests if you have five of these criteria (see below) you may have a wicked problem: There is no definitive formulation...
“Lyf” and the Study of Philosophy
“The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.”― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parliament of Birds Let’s talk about philosophy and language. To understand Nietzsche, do I have to know the German language? To understand Rousseau, do I need to speak and write French? To...
BMI (Body Mass Index) Juxtaposed to Vital Signs? A “Vital Sign Aura”?
Have you ever noticed how a patient's body mass index (BMI) in the EHR seems to be placed alongside a patient's vital signs, as if it is a vital sign? I don’t think BMI is a vital sign. For me, there are only four vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory...
Where There Is No Beauty
There is beauty in trees.There is beauty in flowers.There is beauty in art.there is beauty in music.There is beauty in the person you love.There is beauty in a cat.There is beauty in mathematics. But there is no beauty in business. Ever. Something to consider.
Infinite Games—Solitaire Anyone?
On a lovely trans-Cascades drive this week, I had the opportunity to listen to the book The Infinite Game, by Simon Sinek. (I tend to approach these types of books by audio). Sinek develops a powerful concept: finite games have fixed rules, fixed players, and a...