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AF ablation Atrial fibrillation Doctoring Health Care Health Care Reform Healthy Living

Wisdom…

…the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment. I read today a collection of words that exude wisdom. I share it with you because the purpose of this blog is to do create value through education. Peggy Girshman was an award-winning health journalist. When ill with a life-limiting illness, she wrote her own eulogy. […]

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Doctoring General Medicine Health Care Health Care Reform ICD/Pacemaker Knowledge

Right Care Action Week — Be skeptical

Right Care seeks to be smart care. In the first part of my career, I rarely looked critically at the evidence. I was too busy; and I was more trusting of the vertical hierarchy of medicine. Eminence-based medicine seemed normal. Listen to the experts, for they are experts, went my mindset. Then something happened. When […]

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AF ablation Doctoring General Medicine Health Care Health Care Reform ICD/Pacemaker Knowledge

Right Care Action Week – Un-informed Consent

The current state of informed consent in the US is best described as un-informed consent. A study this May reported that only 3% of patients with coronary artery disease received full informed consent before having an invasive procedure. Findings like these, and there are many other similar studies, reflect the ill-health of the medical decision […]

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Doctoring Health Care Health Care Reform

RightCare Action Week — a broken healthcare system

I am proud to be part of the Lown Institute. Founded by Bernard Lown, a cardiologist, mentor, activist, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Lown Institute is an organization committed to making things right in the US healthcare system. In case you wondered, yes, there is right and wrong in healthcare. At this […]

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AF ablation Atrial fibrillation Doctoring General Ablation General Cardiology General Medicine Health Care Health Care Reform Healthy Living Knowledge Social Media/Writing/Blogging

Writing update: Lown Institute Conference and ACC2015

Hi all, I have been busy in the last few weeks. Here is an update of my happenings and posts. From March 8-11, I attended and presented at the third annual Lown Institute Conference in San Diego. I have never felt more at home in a conference than I did at the Lown conference. Take […]

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Doctoring Hospice/Palliative Care ICD/Pacemaker

The power of the specialist physician — and stewardship

My latest column over at theHeart.org discusses the disordered balance of power in the doctor-patient relationship. As most of you know, I harbor strong biases about the quality of medical decisions, especially in the elderly. Attached. Yes, I am attached to the issue of decision quality. Nearly all of electrophysiology, and much of cardiology, involves […]

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AF ablation Atrial fibrillation Doctoring Exercise General Cardiology General Medicine Health Care Healthy Living

The year in Cardiology 2014 — a top-10 list

When the editors at Medscape asked me to put together an essay on the Top 10 stories in cardiology in 2014, I thought it would be an easy project. I was wrong. It turns out there was a lot to say about the happenings in cardiology this year.  In the end, the final essay had 37 references–a […]

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AF ablation Atrial fibrillation Doctoring General Cardiology Health Care Health Care Reform Healthy Living inflammation Social Media/Writing/Blogging

Where is Cardiology in 2014? An AHA Review

Last week, I attended the American Heart Association (AHA) 2014 Scientific Sessions in Chicago. I was there as both a learner and physician-writer for theHeart.org. Here are a few paragraphs on the meeting. The main purpose of this post is to introduce the five editorials I wrote. The links to the posts are at the […]

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Doctoring General Cardiology Health Care Healthy Living Knowledge

Does the controversy over statin drugs herald a new era of doctoring?

In July, I wrote a short blog post expressing doubt about the value of statin drugs. Medscape republished it on their website and it went viral–in a medical sort of way. The post has 631 comments. It was Tweeted extensively, page views have been off the charts (for me), and I even received an invitation […]

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General Cardiology Social Media/Writing/Blogging

On the eve of ESC 2014 — Barcelona Spain

The 2014 European Society of Cardiology Congress begins tomorrow in Barcelona, Spain. I’m here with my colleagues from the theheart.org Medscape | Cardiology to cover the action. ESC is special because it is such a large meeting, with over 30,000 registered attendees and more than 500 journalists. This year’s addition has an added flair–as the […]

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Atrial fibrillation Dabigatran/Rivaroxaban/Apixaban Healthy Living Knowledge

Getting the dabigatran (Pradaxa) story right… Correcting four common mistakes.

This purpose of this post is to clarify misstatements made in a recent New York Times article about the anticoagulant drug dabigatran (Pradaxa). The piece had three major inaccuracies, plus one thought-error from a cardiology leader. I write these words because the most valuable tool in the treatment of AF is knowledge. Getting it right […]