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.

Should DNR be the Default Resuscitation Order After a Certain Age? The Case of Arnold Relman

No Code, Slow Code, 45 Minute (Purgatory) Code: Responsibility and Accountability in Attempted Resuscitation from Death

Underperforming the Market: Why Researchers are Worse than Professional Stock Pickers and A Way Out

Dated but Not Outdated: Why the Pager Endures as a Means of Physician Communication

Antifragile but Exposed: A Framework for Understanding Disease that Can Improve Diagnostic Decision Making

The Hits are Recorded, the Misses are Not: How the Culture of Medicine and the Third Party Payer System Foment Waste and Inefficiency

No MOC for Me: Why I'm Not Signing Up For Maintenance of Certification

Jahi McMath: Poster Child for Medical Futility, or Scapegoat?

"No! Not NARCAN!" Exclaimed the Woman Not Breathing and Being Bagged

You Are the Hunted: Eat What You Kill Versus the Salary Model (Let Others Do the Killing, My Eats Are Free)

Behind Closed Doors Lurk Proxy Wars: Is Visitation Really About Visitation?

Doctorin' with Double Effect: The Ethics of Withdrawal of Life Support and Oxygen in Dying Patients

The Girl is Brain Dead but the Emperor Has No Clothes

Real (Cardiac) Death and Invented (Brain) Death: The Oakland Case

In Praise of Lasix: A Utility Approach to Pharmacotherapeutics

Your Last Words for a Few More Breaths: Unspoken Trade-offs in End-of-Life Care

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

If It's Not Good Information, It's Bad Information: Improving the Signal to Noise Ratio in ICU Communication

An Opportunity Lost is an Opportunity Cost: Doubling Down with Your Final Days

Rage, rage against the dying of the light: The Fighter and the Pyrrhic Victory

Use Your Own Judgment: The Feckless Physician, the Tyranny of Autonomy, and the Courage of Convictions

Oligopharmacy and Nopharmacy: "He is the best physician who knows the worthlessness of the most medicines."

Parsimonious Practice: How to Treat DKA with 5 Lines of Orders in Half a Day

The Obesity Odyssey: Tie Me to The Mast, Wire My Jaw Shut, Rewire My Guts Into a Roux-en-Y

Pain Is The Fifth Vital Sign - And If You Don't Have Any, You Might Be Almost Dead

Logic Based Medicine: The Case of Activated Charcoal

I Know it When I See it: Antibiotic Resistance, the Chronically Dying, and Futile Medical Care

Worshiping Relics of the Past: The Physical Examination

Ventilating Corpses and Resurrecting the Dead: The State of Modern Critical Care Medicine

Reconsidering the Premises of Care: The Patient Perspective and the Relief of Minimalist Medicine

Reflexes are for Knees! Geez! Why do you need so many ABGs? (An introduction to Bayesian Clinical Decision Making.)

Death by 1000 Needlesticks: The Nocebo effects of Hospitalization

Status Diabetic Ketoiatrogenicus (DKIA)

"It'll break her ribs": Checking boxes on the Code Blue Sushi Menu

Miffed at the Myth of MIVF and nonplussed by nil per os (NPO)

Specious Ideas: CO2 is bad for you and acidosis is a killer too

When the elderly need a protection order against warfarin-wielding physicians

H. pylori, Peptic Ulcer Disease, Bayes' Theorem, and treatment thresholds