What if medicine in the US is just like the internet? What if it is just as difficult to separate the chaff from the wheat in medicine as it...

In the last week I wrote about our quality improvement, or QI, efforts in healthcare. And although there is a burgeoning field representing...

Sometimes when I get an unsolicited call about answering survey questions, I feel a karmic obligation to participate; after all, if everyone...

So much media and journal space has been devoted to financial conflicts of interest, particularly within and related to pharma and device ma...

After a long hiatus filled with travel, work and lack of inspiration to write anything, I have chosen this arguably hottest day of the year ...

My relationship with my Dad was not the easiest: we were so alike that all of his flaws were magnified in my estimation and bugged me dispro...

A few days ago, several news outlets reported on Newt Gingrich's unfortunate turn of phrase about our President. In a speech in Georgia ...

Ideas are a little bit like a pimple: There needs to be enough pressure that builds up to cause one to erupt into consciousness. So it has b...

Recently I had the occasion to tell my 10-year old an old secret: until I was into my forties, I had a strong belief that the rest of the pe...

Here is a weird thought: Our current food production is closer to the Soviet collectivization than to the free enterprise model. Outrageous?...

I thought this post, originally published last May, was worth revisiting apropos  this paper that came out in this week's Archives of ...

It is not a secret that I dislike tobacco companies. Intensely. I do not see the point of allowing them to sell a product whose value is all...

My friend Ivan Oransky runs a highly successful blog called Retraction Watch ; if you have not yet discovered it, you should! In it he and h...

Sorry, folks, but I have been so swamped with work that I have been unable to produce anything cogent here. I see today as a gift day, as my...

Here is another gem from the House of Representatives: a bipartisan bill to increase Medicare reimbursements to community oncology practice...

My mother-in-law is a typesetter. She will not read a book unless it is not only appealing in its content, but also pleasing to the eye. Whe...

Reading this vintage paper on C diff from the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, I came upon this irresistible conclusion: Pr...

Fascinating, how in the same week two giants of evidence-based medicine have given such divergent views on the future of quality improvement...

#5:  Redefining compassion: "A spiritual technology" #4:  CMS never events: Evidence of smoke in mirrors? #3:  The rose-colored ...