The Rodeo is Over: Why I put the Bronchy Donkey Out to Pasture

Photo compliments of Jan Aberegg:  A mini donkey in Ohio.

They say that when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  And when you are a pulmonologist, everything looks like a reason to "saddle up the Bronchy Donkey", my tongue-in-cheek reference to the bronchoscope, a device used to look into a patient's airways.

In the four years that I have been in the world of private practice as an intensivist and inpatient consulting pulmonologist I have performed elective bronchoscopies (outside of emergency airway management and tracheostomy placement) only two times.  Herein I will describe the reasons why this is so, and why many others continue to ride the Bronchy Donkey into the ground.