From Crisis to Health: Lessons from the Pandemic

Over the last year I had the privilege to complete the Stanford Graduate School of Business LEAD program. At the annual conference for LEAD, I had the privilege of thinking about the previous few years shared some lessons as we move forward. Here’s a link to my talk: Dr. Denitza Blagev – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPxErfv6cq8 Below please find … Continue reading

#ATS2022 – The American Thoracic Society Meeting

We went to talks about the science, but also about the challenge. Holding that we are mothers and also doctors and that we felt we failed at both. We failed at so many things. But we didn’t fail. Because we were there. And here we are. Holding that we took calls about who gets the last ECMO bed or the last ICU bed. Holding these decisions and feeling the weight of it and the guilt, and also holding other places, where those decisions were made differently. How many people did we kill? How many did we help? We did the best we could – is that enough? They tell us it is, and yet some of us are holding and turning things over in our minds, because maybe we could have done more. Maybe we should have turned right when we took a left, but we can’t quite see that left was better. Was it?

Morbidity & Mortality Conference, a post mortem

When things go wrong in medicine, as they invariably do, we try to figure out what went wrong, and why.  We try to learn if there’s anything we could have done better and what we should do next time. It used to be, in the days of the Giants, that the physician responsible for the patient … Continue reading

Rural Americans’ Healthcare SLC Tribune Editorial links

Here’s the link to my SLC Tribune Piece Sunday, June 9, 2013 Below are the links that were embedded in the piece. …..healthcare cost..is a major factor, but for many, geography correlates far more with what kind of care they get than health insurance status. …. While on vacation near what the guide book asterisk … Continue reading

Gorilla Glue and Heartbreak

“My friend said to tell you everything when I come,” she says as she opens a little zippered bag full of flakes. “My teeth are falling out and I can’t afford a dentist, so I use Gorilla Glue to glue back the pieces,” she says. She was referred to me for severe asthma, but she … Continue reading

Hubris

“I think he’s just anxious about it,” the medical student told me a few sentences into the presentation.  His patient had had a spontaneous pneumothorax, a leak of air between the lung and chest wall, a few years ago, and now he had some uncomfortable feeling and was worried about a recurrence.  I hadn’t heard the full story … Continue reading

Need Oxygen to Smoke

Need Oxygen to Smoke? my editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune on the difficulty of tobacco cessation.  What do you think about the policy at the Cleveland Clinic and other large employers that refuse to hire smokers? Below are my links that were embedded in editorial, but for some reason SLC trib removes them. …Even … Continue reading

Denial and the Imponderable Differences

David Foster Wallace “Infinite Jest” Page 604 …people of a certain age and level of like life-experience believe they’re immortal: …they deep-down believe they’re exempt from the laws of physics … And they’re constitutionally unable to learn from anybody else’s experience: if some jaywalking B.U. student does get splattered on Comm. or some House resident … Continue reading

Can I Become A Doctor Online?

The cost of medical care and the cost of education in general is sky rocketing. But it is much worse to be at the nexus of these two endeavors – Medical Education. The current path to becoming a doctor in the US involves four years of university followed by four years of medical school. Each … Continue reading

Customer Satisfaction

I recently changed my children’s dentist because his office was too nice.  As with their doctor, it is impossible for a lay person to have any idea whether their dentist is clinically competent or good.  Most of us choose our dentists the same way we choose physicians – by personal recommendations from people we know, … Continue reading