Should Physicians Tweet About Politics?
Should physicians tweet about politics? Usually, my answer is no. If you're ikigai - your mission - is to help out individual patients, then it can only hurt you. For example, if you are a cardiovascular surgeon, whose principal mission is to care so your specific...
My Three Cycles of Review
I review my weekly goal list every day for a few minutes each morning. I review my yearly goal list every Sunday morning, to help me create my weekly goal list. This usually takes about half an hour. I review my life’s purpose list (yes, it is written down!) twice a...
Grammarly Makes Blog Editing Fun Again!
I find my rate-limiting step in producing high quality, high-volume blog content is the grammatical editing process. However, I may finally have a handle on this. For the past several weeks, I've been using the free version of an app called Grammarly. And guess what?...
Creating Great Ideas Requires Intuition; Capturing Great Ideas Requires Discipline
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Good ideas? Maybe one in a hundred. Great ideas? Once a year. THE idea? Once in a lifetime - if you are lucky. Having ideas is an intuitive process, one with an element of randomness. Certainly, this intuition and randomness can be nudged by...
Is Healthcare Social Media Just a Waste of Time?
I deeply believe if a healthcare organization doesn't have clarity of mission then their social media efforts can often just be a waste of time: a one-person offshoot of the marketing department, or an irritating digital space where negative patient comments must be...
Why Did Physicians Become “Providers”?
Words matter. About 10 to 15 years ago. depending on the healthcare system we physicians were affiliated with, we started to see the ubiquitous use of the terms PCP ( Primary Care “Provider” ) and HCP ( ‘Healthcare “Provider”). This was done with little fanfare with...
The Acupuncturist’s Waiting Room
As I write this post, I am in an acupuncturist's waiting room as my wife is getting a consult. The waiting room is fabulous: very peaceful, with gentle guitar music in the background and an offer of an herbal berry tea by the receptionist. I am aware of some of the...
The Blue Zones: Health vs. Healthcare
I've just finished reading a book called "The Blue Zones", by Dan Buettner. It summarizes the similarities and differences between the lifestyles of centenarians who live in communities with a high prevalence of people who not only live much longer than most, but also...
Short Blog Posts Can Be Valuable
See title.
Does Problem Awareness Improve Health?
Does awareness of a health issue, either personally or at the population level, improve health? I am not convinced it does. For example, consider the problem of smoking - which was clearly identified as a health concern in the early 1960s. Or how about the problem of...