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Latest Posts

Technophobic Physician Discovers iPhone, Recommends Apps

Your humble Luddite Whistleblower has leapt across the sea to reach the Isle of Technology. I now own and operate an iPhone, which identifies me as groovy, hip and cool, three adjectives that none of our 5 kids ever use to describe their technophobic father. I’m told that my text messages are too long and too frequent. I am admonished that it is not necessary for me to photograph moments of high drama, such as a kid eating breakfast, and then to disseminate the image to my contact list. I am reminded often that I am slow to grasp the mechanical intricacies of the device, such as switching from ring to vibration mode.

You may wonder how it was possible that I, who consider using an ATM to be a high level computer operation, could make the iPhone, my phone. I knew I couldn’t fail, despite my trepidation of all things cyber. I had a secret weapon, a ‘Plan B’. Actually, I had Plan Z, the most powerful asset that anyone in my situation could hope for. Z stands for Zachy. One sentence will explain all and may provoke screams of envy from those who have no available similar resource. 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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