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Cutting Down on Coffee

This morning as I write this, there is on my desk a steaming hot cup of fake coffee. The ingredients are roasted barley, roasted malt barley, roasted chicory, and roasted rye. This is the sort of stuff people drank as a coffee substitute during wartime rationing. It smells odd. It is hot and black and… Continue reading Cutting Down on Coffee

The Death of Dr. Shock

The call came from one of my attendings at night during my cardiology fellowship. It had a touch of the black humor that medical persons don’t like to admit bubbles up to the surface from time to time. “You know Dr. Shock, the guy on TV? He’s being transferred. He’s having a big infarct and… Continue reading The Death of Dr. Shock

The End of Cardiostim

A few days ago I received an announcement by email that the Cardiostim meeting for 2018 has been cancelled. The Cardiostim website confirms this, and it looks like the meeting is gone for good. Back in June, 2000, while still an academic electrophysiologist at the University of Colorado, I attended my first Cardiostim meeting in… Continue reading The End of Cardiostim

Tips for using your cellphone

Congratulations on your purchase of a new cellphone! While this tiny rectangle of metal and glass may not look like much, you will soon find yourself drawn into its world — inexorably. So as not to become one of those zombie cellphone users you see around you, crashing their cars, walking off cliffs, and ruining… Continue reading Tips for using your cellphone

George Mines and the Impermanence of Knowledge

It was a chilly Fall morning in Montreal. A Saturday, the campus of McGill University was quiet. Students, not much different in 1914 from those of today, were sleeping off their Friday night activities. A cleaning woman entered the Physiology Laboratory to dust the glassware and wash the floors. As she turned a corner she… Continue reading George Mines and the Impermanence of Knowledge

The Smartphone is an Essential Medical Instrument

The storage capacity of the human mind is amazing. One estimate of the size of the brain’s “RAM” is as high as 2.5 petabytes (a million gigabytes). The number is based on the total number of neurons in the brain and the total number of possible connections per neuron. I suspect it is an overestimate,… Continue reading The Smartphone is an Essential Medical Instrument

Trying Out Vim Using Emacs Evil Mode

After using the text editor Emacs for over 20 years, and after listening to debates on the merits of Emacs vs Vi/Vim (henceforth in this post referred to as simply “Vim”) for at least as many years, I decided that I wanted to give Vim a try. To be fair, I had used Vim before,… Continue reading Trying Out Vim Using Emacs Evil Mode

EHR Copy and Paste Considered Harmful

How bad are Electronic Health Record (EHR) programs? Let me count the ways. Rather, let me not, as I and many other folks have already done so. Even non-tech savvy doctors (of which there are fewer and fewer) realize something is wrong when they compare their experience using an EHR with virtually every other computer… Continue reading EHR Copy and Paste Considered Harmful

The Art of the Compromise

I haven’t read “The Art of the Deal,” but I suspect that part of it has to do with the give and take that is necessary in order to achieve a deal. My understanding of the word “deal” implies that I get some things I want, and you get some things you want. I don’t… Continue reading The Art of the Compromise

CenturyLink Sucks, Part 57

I don’t usually work at a coffee shop, but here I am, at Panera’s dealing with their bad (also CenturyLink) internet service, because my internet service is down at home. Yes we are going into DAY NUMBER 4 of the great CenturyLink Internet Service Outage of Parker, Colorado. This started inauspiciously, perhaps coincidentally, during a… Continue reading CenturyLink Sucks, Part 57