Matthew's Blog
Eggs, Healthcare, and the Power of Story
Eggs are just eggs, right? Well, no - not according to Vital Farms. They call their eggs “Ethical Eggs”, which are created by their “girls” (that is, hens) each having over 108 square feet to roam free. But how do I know this? Because with every egg crate, they tell...
Does De-identification of Patient Data Make It Ethical For Use in AI?
When reading the healthcare artificial intelligence and big data literature, I often run across the implied premise that de-identification of patient data makes its use acceptable for large medical studies. Although historically with studies involving only hundreds of...
Habit Linking
This morning, I just finished 54 days of a writing technique called “morning pages”. (For those of you who don't know, morning pages is the process of writing three pages every morning in a free flow format. For more information, see Julia Cameron”s book - The...
The Important Social Media Questions For Healthcare
It's time to think beyond the typical social media-ROI questions. Does social media improve health? Does social media worsen health? Can social media change behavior? Does social media bring awareness to health issues, and, if it does, will this improve outcomes?...
Physician Animosity Towards Electronic Health Records (EHRs)
On the physician members-only social media website Doximity there is a recent post entitled “It’s Wrong for Doctors To Retire Early”. Not unexpectedly, there is an overwhelming response by the physician commenters that they should be free to retire whenever the heck...
The Downside of a Physician’s Wall of Knowledge
Like most physicians, I have a "Wall of Knowledge"; a collection of various undergraduate, graduate and medical degrees, decorated with various board certifications and advanced education certificates. On the one hand, I am proud of these awards. Each represent...
John Locke – Pediatrician?
John Locke (1632 - 1704) is both the Father of Liberalism (Two Treatises on Government) and the Grandfather of Empiricism (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding). But he wasn't just a great philosopher. He was also a physician, and not surprisingly, he had some...
Will Deep Learning Move Us Beyond the Scientific Method in Healthcare?
The scientific method requires the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses using systematic observation, measurement, and experiment. Essentially, it combines the Rationalism of Descartes with the Empiricism of the philosophers Locke and Hume. The...
The “SawDust” Approach to Social Media Platform Expansion
When you build a house you are going to use a lot of 2x4s, most of which are going to require cutting. The result of that cutting? Sawdust. Now, there is a tendency to just sweep up and throw away sawdust. Don't. There are actually quite a lot of uses for sawdust...