When I heard President Obama was delivering a speech to all American school children, I did what I usually do under such circumstances — I turned on Fox News and waited for further instructions. Authorities recommended keeping my children home for their own safety, so that’s what I… Read full post »

It has been four years since Hurricane Katrina, and I find myself grasping for words. Many good things have happened since the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast — and many not so good. If you were to go back to New Orleans now, you could travel quite a bit around town… Read full post »

Rule number one in business: Don’t insult your customers. (Spoiler alert: More vulgar version of this rule below.)

When Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that American citizens do not have “any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter . . . . [… Read full post »

Section 1233 of the House-drafted legislation encourages health care providers to provide their Medicare patients with counseling on . . . end of life treatments, and may place seniors in situations where they feel pressured to sign end of life directives they would not otherwise sign . . . .

[T]his

… Read full post »

This week, the New York Times reports that between 1998 and 2005 the drug company Wyeth paid private companies to ghostwrite 26 scientific papers extolling the benefits of its hormone drugs Premarin and Prempro. The papers were then signed by doctors and medical researchers and published in medical j… Read full post »

Any health care reform that aims for universal coverage has to include a publicly funded insurance plan -- the so-called public option.

Since Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965, the majority of Americans have been insured through private health care plans, most often through their employers. H… Read full post »

A friend of mine was walking the streets of Washington, DC, and accidentally came across the below document in the bottom of a dumpster beneath four hundred empty bottles of scotch, a couple dozen boxes labeled "Torture Memo -- Classified," and a long narrow coffin with the words "Remains of Osama… Read full post »

Though I am no pop culture analyst, the death of Michael Jackson has been on my mind for the last week. Just a few scattered observations. Jackson isn’t the kind who inspires coherence anyway.

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Some commentators have tried to put Jackson up against the Beatles and Elvis. In terms of… Read full post »

In the Sunday New York Times Magazine (6/21), Randy Cohen, author of the column “The Ethicist,” fielded a question from a man studying to be a Roman Catholic priest. The seminarian asked if it was ethical for the school he attended to only give scholarships to students studying to join th… Read full post »

Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s choice to the Supreme Court, is an affirmative action appointment. That is, she was nominated in part because she is a woman and a Hispanic.

Nor is there anything wrong with that. Diversity is important in any high-level government position, and that especiall… Read full post »

The other day my iPhone belched and I lost the contents of a little program I used to keep track of all my online passwords. Most of the information I lost was scattered in other places, but, as is usually true when these things happen, I found out the hard way… Read full post »

Earlier this week, two letters arrived in my mailbox, return post U.S. Medicare office, identical in every way except for the names. They were denial letters, for two patients I admitted to the hospital about two months ago. “There is insufficient documentation,” both letters cryptically… Read full post »

Today President Obama gave the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, to considerable protest. Obama’s planned presence at Notre Dame has been an issue in the Catholic community for months, only surfacing in the general media in the last week or so. Ever since the announce/… Read full post »

The time is overdue, but I am finally removing this graphic from my website sidebar. The graphic, courtesy of a fellow blogging physician who has since shut down his website, was part of my small effort to bring a dishonest politician to some kind of justice.

The impeachment effort agai… Read full post »

Last week, while the rest of the country dealt with minor matters like economic meltdown, terrorism, war, and global pandemics, the government in Louisiana got to business and settled the most pressing political issue of our day — the future of the New Orleans Saints. After much haggling and ba… Read full post »

Here is a progression of statements we, as U.S. citizens, have been expected to swallow over the last 3 years.

1. We are America and we do not torture people.
2. Well, sometimes we use “intensive” interrogation techniques, but we do not torture.
3. Yes, some of our techniques have been labeled to
… Read full post »

John Madden, a fixture in NFL broadcasting, has retired. Though I like Madden, I was never the huge fan so many commentators on cable and sports blogs seem to be. People are never so effusive with their praise as when a recognized figure suddenly bows out.

For me, Madden was once… Read full post »

It is entirely possible that, by the end of the summer, there will be no American auto industry. Right now the Obama administration is in a high-stakes game of chicken with both conservatives and automakers. On one side, they are aggressively challenging the Big Three to come up with an adequate… Read full post »

If my blog were a child, I would be charged with abandonment. It wasn’t intentional, but I know I haven’t been writing much lately. In the near future, I hope to correct that oversight.

It is not as if I haven’t been writing. I write daily, and have even written a… Read full post »

Weary of the hyperbole surrounding the Obama inauguration, I picked up Joseph Ellis' biography His Excellency: George Washington to help put things in perspective. This excellent biography included many fascinating details about the life of our first president, but for me, a physician,… Read full post »

For the last two years, I have been lifting weights. Not as consistently as I would like to, but regularly enough to make that boast mostly true. Prior to that, my interest in iron could be more properly called a dalliance, dating back to my college days, when I befriended a… Read full post »

Nepotism. It’s a word in the dictionary, I swear; and people used to consider it an insult. It means using family connections to get jobs, usually at the expense of those poor bastards not lucky enough to be conceived in the back seat of a Rolls Royce. At least, back in… Read full post »

While reading through the November 15^th issue of American Family Physician, I happened across a peculiar advertisement. Neither a pharmaceutical nor a medical product ad, it had political overtones, and thus seemed oddly out of place. It stopped me because its subject was a topic of particular… Read full post »

Two years ago, in its relentless drive to deliver always the low price, Wal-mart rolled out its now famous $4 drug plan. The approach was simple – all Wal-mart pharmacies nationwide would offer a slate of generic drugs for $4 cash. Though the plan was straightforward and seemed benefici… Read full post »

This may seem peculiar, but one of my fondest-but-craziest desires after this long presidential campaign is to see Barack Obama appoint John McCain to his cabinet.

Before anyone readies the flame mail, hear me out. This idea first crossed my mind as I watched McCain give his concession speech. It was… Read full post »