Status Iatrogenicus

This is a blog about how lack of common sense leads to common nonsense in medical practice. The result is often Status Iatrogenicus, or a vicious cycle of complications, burdensome care, wasted resources, and missed opportunities. This blog aims a critical eye at various aspects of medical practice that just plain don't make sense - because the cure for common nonsense is uncommon sense.

Sunday, October 4, 2026

There But For The Grace of God Go I: Botched and "Successful" Executions (State Ordered Homicide)

›
This blog is called status iatrogenicus because it highlights physician folly, and in the wake of the botched execution of Christa Pike, it ...
1 comment:
Friday, September 18, 2026

Hickam's Victims: Histoplasmosis and PJP in an immunocompromised host

›
Here's a great case report of histoplasmosis and PJP co-infection in an immunocompromised host . The authors did a pretty good job of do...
Tuesday, August 25, 2026

Hickam's Victims: Misdiagnosis & Treatment of an Incidentaloma in Guillain-Barre Syndrome and Careless Citation Practices

›
I'm following citations to  our paper explicating Hickam's Dictum (HD) and Ockham's Razor (OR) as applied to diagnostic decisio...
Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Hickam's Victims: An M&M of an MM misdiagnosis

›
In this case report , the authors describe the case of a 42-year-old-woman who presented with abdominal pain, rash, fever, loose stools and ...
Friday, March 20, 2026

Omission Bias in Therapeutic Medical Decision Making

›
Having studied so-called heuristics and biases, aka cognitive biases and System 1 & System 2 processes in medical decision making on and...
Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Aortic Aneurysm Mimicking Recurrent Achalasia after Mediastinitis Complicating Botulinum Toxin Injections.......for Achalasia (Hickam's Victims series)

›
In this case report , the authors describe a case of a young woman with achalasia who got repeated episodes of mediastinitis complicating bo...
Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Hickam Tricked 'em with the 'ol Red Herring Ruse (Hickam's Victims series)

›
One of my favorite Charlie Munger quotes goes something like this: "Warren, over the years you and I have appreciated the great value i...

Hickam's Victims: The Unwary Diagnostician

›
In this case report , the authors describe a woman, some 82 years of age who had immigrated from Korea 30 years prior to presenting with syn...
Sunday, August 3, 2025

Epistemic Arrogance. Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Diagnosis is Stochastic, NOT Deterministic

›
This post was spurred by my reading the July 24 th NEJM case records, “A Man with Cough, Dyspnea, and Hypoxemia. ”  When I was still using ...
Wednesday, December 18, 2024

A Foolish Consistency: Policy, Practice, and Rationality in Medical Decision Making

›
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines" - Ralph Waldo Em...
Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Bayesian Implications for Factitious Disorder

›
The next time you encounter a patient with an odd constellation of rare or poorly defined diseases (POTS and MCAS is a common duo), especial...
Sunday, May 22, 2022

Numeracy in Medicine: Clinical Wagers to Estimate Probability in Diagnosis

›
As has become my custom, I offered a wager on rounds the other day. An nonagenarian had gastrointestinal hemorrhage. He presented with synco...
Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Cheating in Medical School? A Personal Tale in the Wake of the Dartmouth Scandal

›
A recent NYT article about cheating at Dartmouth reminded me of some hermetic knowledge of cheating in medical school that I have kept mos...
Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Applying Applied Physiology to COVID: Silent Hypoxia and The Work of Breathing

›
Enough time has passed and enough clinical experience with the behavior of COVID gained that we can now apply some applied physiology to ou...
2 comments:
Sunday, April 12, 2020

Are the "Vent Protocols" causing harm in COVID?

›
Here is a response to  Deborah Mayo's excellent blog post posing this question .  I encourage you to first read her post.  Here, I expl...
1 comment:
›
Home
View web version

About Me

My photo
Scott K. Aberegg, M.D., M.P.H.
Professor of Medicine, University of Utah. Former affiliations: Outside Hospital x 7.5 years; Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University; Fellowship & MPH: Johns Hopkins Hospital & Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD; Residency: The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center; MD: The Ohio State University; BA, Spanish: Miami University, Ohio. All views are my own with NO institutional endorsement.
View my complete profile
Powered by Blogger.