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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

EP Studios App Updates

Here’s what’s going on with the EP Studios apps: EP Calipers Most of the new stuff is in EP Calipers. Probably the most useful new feature is available on the Mac and Windows versions: a transparent floating caliper window. Use it to overlay calipers over any open window on the desktop. Check figures of journal… Continue reading EP Studios App Updates

Do No Harm

Cardiac neuroses are often iatrogenic in origin. A well-meaning but careless comment by a physician can change a person’s sense of well-being in an instant. The effect can be permanent and devastating. Many clinicians who complain about overly anxious patients don’t appreciate their own role in the genesis of this problem. Our words matter. They… Continue reading Do No Harm

Thoughts on Mark Josephson

I’m sure there will be plenty of tributes to Dr. Josephson in the next few days from his colleagues who knew him well and those who didn’t know him personally but learned so much from his books and articles. I fall somewhere in the middle. I wasn’t one of his students at Penn who learned… Continue reading Thoughts on Mark Josephson

A Tale of Two Histories

Compare the following two versions of the same medical history: Version 1 CC: chest pain Mr. Smith is a 57 y/o white man who comes into the office today for the first time with a complaint of chest pain. He states he has been in generally good health in the past, though he has smoked… Continue reading A Tale of Two Histories