Hacking the QTc

The QT interval—a measure of the duration of the overlapping action potentials from two billion ventricular muscle cells—has fascinated physiologists since the dawn of electocardiography.  Too long or too short, it can be a harbinger of ventricular arrhythmias and sudden death. Sensitive to electrolytes, drugs, and autonomic tone, susceptible to congenital ionic channel mutations, difficult to… Continue reading Hacking the QTc

Cruises, Then and Now

[Author’s Note:  This post got completely garbled when I tried to transmit it to the server using the terrible shipboard internet service in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  If you tried to read it before and gave up, convinced I had downed a few too many Bloody Marys, you might want to give it… Continue reading Cruises, Then and Now

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Categorized as Travel

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

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Categorized as Medicine, TV

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