Sleep, I often say, is the elusive treasure of a hospital stay. Indeed, when hospitalized, there are many things that need to be done to the patient: diagnostic tests, laboratory studies, multiple visits from multiple clinicians, to name a few. So, …
“Why Medicine?” Why go into a career that takes several years - and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars - to complete? And, it is still a very demanding job at the end of that long, expensive path. So, why do it? Many, including mys…
In the classic sleep deprivation experiments, two rats were placed on a disk that can rotate over water. They had as much food and drink as they wanted, and if the experimental rat fell asleep or entered a prohibited sleep stage, the disk started to…
On April 5, 2025, a second child died of measles in Texas. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, both children were otherwise healthy. If you have never lost a child, then you cannot know - and I wish you will NEVER come to kn…
I am a man of deep faith, striving to live a life of righteousness to the best of my ability. While never imposing my religious belief on anyone, especially not my patients, I am still quite comfortable in the sphere of faith and speaking the langua…
Many ICU patients suffer from anemia. Some are chronically anemic, and others develop anemia due to their acute illness (such as bleeding, for example). Multiple specialty societies have developed guidelines over when to transfuse red blood cells, a…
In my conversation with Dr. Elaine Chen of Rush University Medical Center, who is both an Intensive Care and Palliative Care physician, I asked her how being a Palliative Care specialist has helped her as a Critical Care physician. The thing that st…
I recently sat down with Dr. Sergio Zanotti, Chief Medical Officer for Sound Critical Care and had a wonderful conversation (link at the end of the post) about the pandemic, healthcare, and medicine in general. One of many insights he gave me that t…
As I do my appeal letter work, I frequently come across a justification for the denial that says something like this: “A payer may use its own criteria to establish a diagnosis.” And the cite an AHA Coding Clinics article from Q4 2016, p…
It is a very common theme in art (movies, books, etc) to feature a doctor who thinks he is God. We doctors, especially those of us who practice in the Intensive Care Unit, make life and death decisions in a matter of seconds. Many times, the d…