I am an Emergency Physician and every day I go down the rabbit hole into the insane world of American Medicine.

via M.D.O.D.: My Favorite Year.

He’s over at MDOD.  Hasn’t lost his touch with the truth.

I’ve been able to study Paul Levy’s management of BIDMC during several classes (more on that someday), and he’s a smart guy.  Which makes this dumbfounding, if humanizing:

The Board of Directors of BIDMC today issued the following statement, which has been distributed to the media and to the entire hospital community.

The Board of Directors of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, with the assistance of outside counsel, has completed its review of allegations made involving President and CEO Paul Levy. The review focused on a personal relationship with a former employee of the Medical Center. The Board found that over time the situation created an improper appearance and became a distraction within the hospital.

via Running a hospital: I was wrong. I am sorry..

Good for him, and I doubt this is going to be enough.  There’s a scandal worth and immediate $50K penalty and the threat of more in contract negotiations.

Time to call Oprah, or something, and do it All at Once.  Get it all out (and don’t hold back, a la Tiger), etc.  People will forgive bad judgment, they will pillory you for a cover up.

It’s going to come out, so Just Do It.

Eight years ago today, this inauspicious effort began.  I had no idea where it would go, where it would take me, how long it would last, or what I’d do with it.

Time hasn’t answered any of those questions, except ‘at least 8 years’.

Thanks Mom, and my other 9 readers, for checking in now and again.

From Alexa.com:

That’s a good crowd.  Thanks for coming!

Some of our patients are made, not born…

(The story you are about to read is true.)

The day was uncharacteristically warm.

via Lesson Over a Latte // Emergiblog.

After much thought, I have decided to end NHS BLOG DOCTOR.

via nhsblogdoc.

Farewell.  Thanks for the free entertainment!

The current issue of the American Health Lawyers Association's Connections magazine features an article I co-authored with fellow AHLA health lawyer, Jody Joiner, on the impact of social media use in health care.

The article, Risky Business: Treating Tweeting the Symptoms of Social Media (PDF version), is featured in the March 2010 issue of AHLA Connections (Vol.14, No. 3, March 2010), a health lawyer magazine for the health and life sciences law community.

via Health Care Law Blog: AHLA Connections: Legal Implications of Health Care Social Media.

Nice overview of the concerns health care lawyers have about social media, twitter, blogs, etc.  Note that while pointing out the difficulties, at the end several common-sense answers are given,  none of which involve suppressing speech.

For which they’re to be commended: waaaay too often in medicine the reflex response to any complex problem in ‘no’ or ‘you can’t do that’, whether that response is the right answer or not.

Worth your time to read.

Disclosure: I met Mr. Coffield at BlogWorld in 2009.  He was a panelist in one panel, and could have had an entire day just by himself: that smart, and that good at explaining complex ideas.

I’m having cataract surgery in the morning, so I covet your prayers for a successful procedure.

I guess it’s what happens when one’s beard begins to turn the color of a hillside with light snow.

via edwinleap.com | Cataract surgery for me!.

Best of luck to Dr. Leap (and moreso to his surgeon).  Prayers for one of the very best EM writers extant.

Prompted by a series of tweets and buzzes pertaining to the knowledge base of Emergency Medicine bloggers we felt it was time to overhaul our ‘BlogRoll‘ and create a separate table for the Emergency bloggers, their twitter handles and RSS feeds.

via Emergency Medicine Bloggers | Life in the Fast Lane.

Nice list!  If you find an omission, please leave it there, and not here.

This is a sample section from a new book I’m writing on the transition from residency to practice.

When you die:

via edwinleap.com | When you die, doctor….

More astonishingly good advice from Dr. Leap.

Sam Ko’s Emergency Medicine Blog: Ten Emergency Medicine Websites I Love and Will Marry.

I am always please to be singled out, and am humbled to be mentioned with the other 9 excellent blogs in this category.

But, I’m already married.  So, there’s that.

A tour de force.  What medical blogging aspires to be:

The New Mammogram Guidelines – What You Need to Know

Unless you’ve been living on another planet, you know that in mid-November, the US Preventive Services Task Force released new recommendations on screening mammography, in which they recommended against routine mammogram screening in women under age 50, and recommended that mammograms be every two years in women ages 50-74.

What you may not have heard is that the Task Force has acknowledged that the mammogram guidelines were poorly worded, and have revised their original statement to clarify their intentions, mostly by removing those two little words “Recommends against”.

Docnotes: Ten years of blogging

Happy Birthday to (what I think is) the oldest continuous medical blog!  Ten years is forever in the world of blogs, kudos.

Panda has roused himself to post again.

Money for Nothing, Healthcare for Free : PANDA BEAR, MD

Dead on, as usual.

Dr. Wes: US Health Care Reform Photoshop Contest

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday season and to make sure something on health care reform gets done before the end of the year, Dr. Wes and his wife, Diane, would like to propose the first (and perhaps only) US Healthcare Reform Photoshop Contest.

Bring us your snark, your wit, your creativity about the health care reform efforts encapsulated in a single photograph. Photographs in support or against the current efforts will be equally considered, and you, dear internet devotees, will be the final judge. The winner receives an iPod Touch.

Sheer genius. I only wish a) I knew enough about photoshop not to be a liability, and b) I had an imagination. Let’s see yours…(imagination).