Episodes

On June 7, 2009 my eldest daughter, Bayan, died from complications of lymphoma. Ever since that day, there have been songs that have helped me deal with the grief of her loss. I call them, “The Soundtrack of my Grief.” The so...

Will AI replace all Doctors? How good is the medical literature? What about the hype in Medicine today? I asked these and many more questions of Dr. Bobby Dubois, and our conversation was insightful and illuminating. Dr. Bobb...

When I first started practicing, progress notes in the medical record said nothing because physicians did not write legibly. Now, we have multi-page progress notes that are legible and also say nothing. Why are we still here?

This is the first in a new series of soliloquies by Dr. Hassaballa called “Dr. H’s Verbal Hassaboluses.” And for the very first one, he advises Residents and Fellows to PLEASE stop writing system-based notes.

While we all trained at the Academy, most of the care provided to patients occurs in the Community. And it seems that, more and more, the research output from the Academy is not clinically relevant to the Community. So, I wan...

Six years ago, today, was the darkest day of the Covid 19 pandemic for me. And it was good for me that all my emotion came out at the time it did.

The purpose of the healthcare system is to heal the sick, and unfortunately, it seem that the system has strayed from this purpose. Gil Bashe, Chair of Global Health and Purpose for FINN Partners, reminds us of this purpose i...

Sepsis is the number one diagnosis treated in most intensive care units across the world, and it can be very deadly in short order. Yet, is sepsis even a disease? "No," according to Dr. Rafael Olive Leite, aka, the "Thoughtfu...

The healthcare system is supposed to be centered around just one person: the patient. According to Matthew Zachary, however, the healthcare system has failed miserably in its mission. Of all the voices that have been heard on...

The 2026 Surviving Sepsis Guidelines were released last March in Chicago. Among the dozens of recommendations, there are 17 “strong” recommendations. In this episode, Dr. Hassaballa speaks about these 17 strong recommendation...

The new Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines were released late last month in Chicago. This week’s episode highlights the most important changes to Dr. Hassaballa. Hint: Dr. Hassabolus is vindicated again. Read the entire gui...

Physicians’ jobs today are very hard. There are so many demands on their time, and there is not enough time in the day to do everything they need to do. So it is understandable that a busy clinician would ask “Who Cares?” Whe...

Both obesity and protein calorie malnutrition are major comorbid conditions (MCC), and they are frequent targets of post-discharge denials by payers. In this episode of Healthcare Musings, Dr. Hassaballa explains why it is so...

It has been six years, almost to the day, since I saw my first Covid patient in the ICU. So much has changed since then. In this insightful interview, Dr. Joseph Marine, a Johns Hopkins Cardiologist and Professor of Medicine,...

The hospital ED or ICU is the absolute worst place to have a goals of care conversation.

Primary Care is in trouble. The job is very hard, doesn’t pay as much as it should, and the numbers of PCPs is dwindling. How can we save the field? Dr. Bobby Scott has another novel idea to help reduce the burden on Primary ...

There is a dire shortage of Primary Care Physicians, and it is projected to get even worse. We need Primary Care Physicians, and creating more Residency slots takes years to come to fruition. This week’s guest on the Healthca...

There is a common perception that hospitals are nonstop, money making machine machines. Reality, however, it’s quite different. In this episode, I sit down with Mr. Ken Kaufman, a Managing Director at Kaufman Hall. He gives a...

There has been an uproar on the part of some over the new dietary guidelines published by the government ( www.realfood.gov ). Is the uproad justified? I asked the perfect person: America's Cardiologist, Dr. Mohammed Alo ( ht...

Telecritical care is part of the future of Critical Care Medicine in the United States and world. There are various models of implementing TeleICU programs, and one of them is a “hybrid” between on site and tele ICU. How can ...

Acute hypoxic respiratory failure is diagnosed by one of these three criteria: PaO2 less than 60 mm Hg SpO2 less than 90% PaO2/FiO2 ratio < 300 That's it. Payers like to add all sorts of clinical criteria alongside this. This...

Increasingly, insurance companies and third-party auditors are denying sepsis claims and DRGs based on the “Sepsis-3” article published almost 10 years ago. Specifically, they contend that if there is no SOFA score of 2 or gr...

I was honored to be a guest on the Becker’s Healthcare Podcast. During the episode, I discussed how AI is transforming clinical care; the irreplaceable human elements of medicine; and the leadership values that guide my work....

Ever since the death of my daughter on June 7, 2009, I have written and reflected on many things that remind me of her, including many popular songs. It is one of the ways the Lord saved my life after her death. Today, on her...