Skeptical Scalpel

Radiologists discussing test results with patients, a subject that has been lurking under the radar for a while, came to light a while ago because of an article in the New York Times. The idea is that patient anxiety while...

In their quest to culture every object on planet Earth, researchers have found that hospital elevator buttons are more contaminated with bacteria than restroom surfaces. Of 120 randomly cultured elevator buttons, 73 (61%) grew...

An anonymous physician wrote the following. With his permission I have edited it for length and clarity: If you are a current or future patient or a healthcare worker, you should understand the concept of “population...

On Gary Schwitzer’s website healthnewsreview.org, a debate about the role of physicians who work as journalists took place. It was sparked by an NBC News report on the changing of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome to its new...

In case you haven’t noticed, a hot new topic in education is “grit.” In order to reduce the long-standing 20% attrition rate of surgical residents, some say we should select applicants who have more...

Any surgeon who acts as a proctor for another surgeon or supervises residents or mid-level providers should be aware of the potential legal pitfalls. An informative discussion of proctoring and supervision called “Is There...

An orthopedist asked me if I could explain why a couple of papers of his did not generate any feedback. He wasn’t even certain that anyone had read them. He enclosed PDFs for me. Not being an orthopedist, I cannot comment...

A couple of recent articles about dying by well-known physician-authors attracted a lot of media attention. In October 2014, 57-year-old Ezekiel J. Emanuel, writing in The Atlantic, gave a number of reasons why he hoped he would...

Two weeks ago, I posed this question, “Does anyone really read anything online?” Based on some data from various sources, I concluded that not many do. I also noted that many links I tweeted were passed along by...