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Friendly Legal Chat: EMRs May Create A Plethora Of New Ways For Physicians To Be Sued

I spent the entire last weekend with an attorney, not a desirable circumstance for most physicians. However, I wasn’t being deposed or interrogated on cross examination. This was a rendezvous that we both sought with enthusiasm.

Lewis is my closest friend, a bond that was forged since we were eight years old. We are separated now only by geography, and we meet periodically because we both treasure the friendship. Earlier this year we rolled the dice in Vegas. Last weekend, we sweated in the sweltering heat of the Mile High City. Next stop? Back to Denver with a few youngins’!

Lewis is the managing partner in a prominent west coast law firm that specializes in tax evasion. (Or is it tax avoidance? Am I confusing my terms here, Lew?) He has been redrafted to this position because he has earned the respect of his colleagues. Clearly, both Lewis and I have ascended to the highest strata of our professions. Lewis is in charge of a large law firm that has global reach; he travels all over the world cultivating business and negotiating deals; and he navigates clients through complex and labyrinthine legal conundrums. I, an esteemed community gastroenterologist, perform daily rectal examinations and counsel patients on flatulence.

I am sure that readers will agree that our future professional prestige is already evident in this photo of us taken several decades ago. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at MD Whistleblower*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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