Physician's Guide to Doctoring with Bradley B. Block, MD

Wealthy Mom MD, Dr. Bonnie Koo, Discusses Female Physician Finance

Dr. Bonnie Koo, is a dermatologist and former systems administrator at Morgan Stanley. She is a graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons and completed her dermatology residency at UC Irvine.  She created the website WealthyMomMD.com to fill the void of knowledge and resources specific to women physicians on how to take control of their finances. She directs the Women Physicians Personal Finance group on Facebook--the largest online community of...

The Physician Philosopher's Guide to Personal Finance

The next three episodes comprise an intro to the Physician's Guide to Personal Finance. We start with the Physician Philosopher, an anesthesiologist blogger who wants his audience to understand their "why" to understand their "how" of personal finance.  Next week we interview Bonnie Koo, MD, the voice of female physician finance, and the following week we interview Ryan Inman, a fee-only financial advisor who understands the specifics of physicians' financial needs as he exclusively works wi...

You Get Medicare and You Get Medicare! Everyone Gets Medicare!

Adam E. Block, PhD is currently an Assistant Professor of Public Health at the School of Health Sciences and Practice at New York Medical College. He is a health economist with deep experience in the hospital, health plan and government sectors. His research is focused on how individuals make decisions in health care markets including patient choice of hospitals, physicians and insurance plans.  We discuss the new push for “Medicare for all.”  First, we discuss what Medicare is, what it co...

Twist of Lyme

Because borrelia burgdorferi is a spirochete; a spiral! A little mnemonic device for the med students. Dr. Daniel Solomon is an infectious disease doctor on staff at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.  He went to med school at Yale, and then did both residency and fellowship at the Brigham, although fellowship was combined with Mass General, where he was on the HIV Clinician Educator track.  He is actively involved in improving care ...

Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes

Professor Nathan Lents studied biology at St. Louis University and then completed his PhD at St. Louis University’s school of medicine in Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences.  PhDs need residencies, too, so he did his postdoctoral training in cancer genomics at NYU and loved New York so much that he stayed and is now a Professor at John Jay College in Manhattan and director of the honors program.  He maintains the Human Evolution Blog and his podcast is called This World of Humans.   ...

Post-nasal Podcast or the Physician's Guide to Throat Clearing

Should we assume EVERYONE has reflux until proven otherwise?  Does reflux cause global warming?  If there’s a post-nasal drip, is there a pre-nasal drip?  Where’s all that mucus coming from anyway?  On today’s episode we discuss the epidemics of reflux and post-nasal drip with laryngologist Dr. Matthew Clary, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.  Dr. Clary went to medical school at The Ohio State, started his otolaryngology residency at George Washing...

What is tough to learn and EVERY doctor could do better?

What is something that is tough to learn and every doctor should know it better than they do?  Aside from Kreb’s Cycle.  Billing and coding!  Dr. Charlotte Akor is a nationally recognized speaker and physician coach on billing and coding.  In this interview, we discuss the necessary history, physical and medical decision making in order to bill and code appropriately and then get into the weeds about proper coding of medical decision making.  She uses examples to help explain medical decis...

Cooking to Reinvigorate Your Health from TheChefDoc

Dr. Colin Zhu is a family medicine physician who practices primarily locums.  He also trained as a chef and a health coach at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health & Culinary Arts and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition after medical school.   We discuss recommendations he has for his patients looking to eat healthier and physicians looking to do this same.  We talk about essential kitchen utensils and small appliances, his go-to ingredients, for simple, fast, healthy, and delicious m...

Is CBD TBD or NBT?

Dr. Rachna Patel is an emergency medicine physician who has a medical marijuana telemedicine practice, a book, and her own CBD oil.  Medical marijuana and CBD, specifically, seem to have become a panacea or snake oil with magical properties that can cure everything.  Like what we tell our patients about good nutrition and exercise. She helps to clear up fact from fiction during our wide ranging and comprehensive discussion, from the current state of dispensing, its legal status, biochemistry...

Teen Depression and Suicidality

Dr. Uchenna Umeh is a pediatrician who has lost people to suicide.  She saw this as a growing issue among her patient population, so she left the stability of her medical practice to affect a wider audience by reaching out to larger groups.  She is now a public speaker on childhood, teen and young adult depression and suicide. We discuss her recommendations for recognizing characteristics of depression and suicidality, how to start the discussion about such a sensitive issue if we suspect it...

Challenges Faced by International Medical Graduates

Dr. Jasmine Marcelin is an infectious disease doctor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  How did a doctor from Antigua end up in Nebraska?  Through Canada, of course!  It is an interesting story that she uses to educate us about some of the challenges and stigmas that international medical graduates face in order to practice medicine in the US.  Dr. Marcelin is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Co-Director of Digital Innovation & Social Media Strategy and Associate Medical Dir...

Truth Prescriptions for a Better QOL with Dr. Errin Weisman

Dr. Errin Weisman is a family physician in rural, southwest Indiana, and a life coach, speaker, blogger, and a podcaster.  We talk about three ideas she wishes she could teach her younger self and each has its own actionable step to help us all live more fulfilling lives.  We also flipped the script on an old formula. On previous episodes, we’ve had specialists discuss what they think all physicians should know about the specialty, but this time, she told us what she wants all specialists to...

Evidence Based Habit Development

If you’ve ever counseled a patient (or yourself!) on how to improve their diet, quit smoking, or exercise more, you are basically saying that they need to improve their habits.  Should you be telling them to go Paleo?  Keto? Crypto? CrossFit?  Yoga?  Tai Chi?   Dr. Tello gets into the evidence behind the science of habit development.  Her recommendation?  Just do one push-up a day.  Or eat one piece of kale.  That’s it!  She wrote a book about evidence based habit development called Healthy...

Anesthesia Myths and Unbound Doctors

Dr. David Draghinas was an active duty anesthesiologist in the US navy before going into private practice in the Dallas area.  He made his first foray onto the world wide web with the anesthesia myths website, as a way to help patients tell fact from fiction with anesthesia.  We talk about what he wants all physicians, especially those writing surgical clearance letters, to know about anesthesia.  We also discuss his podcast, Doctors Unbound, where he interviews physicians who are doing “ama...

What weighs 1 ounce and has 7 fellowships?

Dr. Rand Diab is a board-certified, comprehensive ophthalmologist in the Chicago suburbs of Northwest Indiana, practicing for over 15 years.  We discuss what she thinks all physicians should know about ophthalmology, which starts with how to spell it.  We discuss acute eye injuries and why every pink eye doesn’t get treated with antibiotics drops.  She also really deflates my balloon when she dispels the myth that an avulsed eyeball can be kept in milk until it can be reattached.  Dr. Diab...

Breast Feeding for Trauma Surgeons

Sonal Patel is a neonatologist who recognized a gap in the transition of care from a hospital delivery to discharge to the first pediatrician visit, so she created a practice that fills that gap from the ground up.  We discuss how she went about doing that and what she thinks every physician, from pathologists to trauma surgeons, need to know about breastfeeding.  Through residency, fellowship, practice and in personal experiences, she noticed the gaps of postpartum care. In 2017, she foun...

Healer, Leader, Partner with former Kaiser Federation CEO Jack Cochran, MD

As the former National Executive Director (CEO) of the Permanente Federation of Kaiser Permanente, Dr. Jack Cochran is the penultimate physician leader.  He shares his advice on why physicians need to become leaders of change in healthcare (in short, because if we won’t, who will).  He uses his experience mixed with evidence to teach us how in his new book, Healer, Leader, Partner: Optimizing Physician Leadership to Transform Healthcare, and in this podcast episode.             He began a...

Burnout Breakthrough with Dr. Christopher Burton

Dr. Christopher Burton is a physiatrist, speaker, and prolific author, writing about physician finance, home buying, practice marketing, and finds physician burnout to be such a critical issue, that this is his SECOND book on the topic.  In our interview, we discuss the specialties that are most commonly affected, how to recognize it and how to address it.  This is not a woo-woo talk about breathing and meditating your burnout away.  We talk about the brass tacks like outsourcing and learnin...

Strategic Quitting - What Every Doctor Needs to Quit NOW

Lynn Marie Morski, MD, has played every instrument, every sport, run for every office and she quit them all to lie on the beach.  OK, none of that is true except the lie on the beach part since she lives in San Diego, but she is a quitting evangelist.  We discuss when to quit and more importantly, when NOT to quit, the psychology of quitting and what prevents us from following through.  She has a five point plan for strategic quitting, so we go through all five steps.  Even though her platfo...

England's National Health System with Dr. Hussain Gandhi

Given the recent push from the progressive arm of the Democratic party for Medicare for all, it is useful to look at nations that already have that model.  Dr Hussain Gandhi is a General Practitioner (GP) in Nottingham, England.  We discuss the UK health system and the pros and cons of universal state-funded healthcare for populations and individuals.    Aside from his practice, he is the representative to the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) council, treasurer of GP Survi...

Doctoring through the ShouldStorm

Alison Escalante, MD is a practicing pediatrician who has developed a way of thinking and breathing through what she calls, "The Shouldstorm."  As physicians, we face similar storms with our patients, colleagues, administrators, and ourselves.  She walks us through the ideas she presented in a TEDx talk and applies it to doctoring.     She can be found at  shouldstorm.com  And her TEDx talk can be found at  youtube.com/watch?v=mYT7EDi_nOs&t=387s   She did her undergrad at P...

Positive Philosophy: Ancient and Modern Wisdom to Create a Flourishing Life

Dr. Sanj Katyal is a radiologist and a student of positive psychology.  He wrote the book that he wished he had read 20 years ago and he in order to share what he has learned with us.  He combines the philosophy of the ancient stoics and Bhagavad Gita with the relatively new, science-backed positive psychology to help us live our best lives.  We cover the trap of hedonic adaptation and how this applies to physician finances and how this concept can cause an initially exciting profession to b...

Nothing to Fear, Just a Dislocation Here

We discuss what every physician should know about the management of acute orthopaedic injuries that any of us may encounter in our lives and when to worry and when to reassure.  And how to reduce a dislocated shoulder.  We also discuss what sports she wouldn't let her son play and the answer certainly surprised me.   Dr. Nancy Yen Shipley is a board-certified orthopaedic surgeon, with additional fellowship training in sports medicine and arthroscopy. Her professional interests include spor...

Doctor Identities on the Blockchain

Leah Houston, MD had her physician identity used for billing after her employment concluded.  This led to the epiphany that caused her to start HPEC.IO, an organization that is trying to give physician's back control of their identities using blockchain technology.  This could be useful for doctors that want to switch jobs or states without having to have every bit of information independently verified.  We first discuss what blockchain is and then get into how she plans to implement it to n...

No Fibs about A Fib with Doctor A Fib

Dr. Percy Francisco Morales is a fellowship-trained electrophysiologic cardiologist who felt that he could help more people by developing an alter ego and creating online content.  As physicians, we tend to answer the same questions again and again, so he thought it would be helpful for patients if he made an atrial fibrillation FAQ and thus Dr. A Fib was born.  We discuss the risks associated with a fib, management options, why coumadin is becoming a thing of the past, and new procedures.  ...

Helping Doctors Heal the World Through Coaching

Dr. Dianne Ansari-Winn had her own battles with burnout until she turned to a physician coach, then became a coach and now teaches coaches.  There are executive coaches, sales coaches, tennis coaches, but until recently, not many physician coaches.  With the increase in physicians dissatisfied and unfulfilled by their careers, the "physician coach" is responding.  Dr. Dianne and I discuss why our field has been slow to realize the importance of coaching, her five-step physician vitality reco...

Bad words: why language counts when discussing weight with our patients

A few months ago, there was a HuffPost article entitled "Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong," by Michael Hobbes.  It discussed the struggles of people who have obesity and how the medical system has failed them.  It quoted Stephanie Sogg, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Weight Center at MGH (notice how it isn't called the "weight loss center").  In it, Dr. Sogg describes her approach as "being nicer to her patients than they are to themselves." Given that this article lambasted...

Social Media Part Deux: Doctoring in the Blog-o-sphere

Dr. Dana Corriel is known to some as the godmother of doctors on social media.  This all started with her personal blog, which she created for creative catharsis and to help inform patients on a larger scale than the 1:1 office visits.  She now manages a multiple facebook communities and has a presence on almost all social media platforms.  We discuss the hows and whys of being a doctor on social media with "one of the top 10 internists to follow on Twitter."  One of her tips: a consistent...

How Physicians Should Buy Their Homes with Dr. Moves

Dr. Ramey had a pretty negative experience buying his first home as a med student, so he took matters into his own hands.  His wife got her real estate license, he got his, and how he helps med students, residents, and attendings around the country buy homes.  He walks us through the entire process from tip to tail, and we discuss for whom a physician loan would be appropriate, the advantages and disadvantages of such a loan, as well as the other types of loans available. He also has an ex...

The Real Estate Physician - Cherry Chen, MD

Dr. Cherry Chen, the Real Estate Physician discusses this potential source of stable, predictable, passive-income as an alternative to investing in the stock market.  We discuss how she made her foray into this field, the tax advantages of real estate investment, why she chooses multi-family commercial real estate via syndication over crowdfunding or individual units, and how picking a syndication is like picking a doctor. http://therealestatephysician.com https://www.facebook.com/TheRea...

The Frugal Physician: A Primary Care Physician's Journey to Financial Independence

In residency, we have to live with less.  Less money.  Less time.  Less dignity.  And after finishing, we are rewarded for our herculean efforts with higher income.  Sometimes the time and dignity come back, too.  In today's episode, the Frugal Physician and I discuss the pitfalls that can come with that increased income and how falling into the materialistic abyss brings with it more financial stress and often less happiness. We discuss her journey to frugality and lessons learned along the...

Acute Flaccid Myelitis

Acute Flaccid Myelitis is a polio-like illness that tends to start with symptoms of an upper respiratory tract illness and leads to flaccid paralysis.  There are more questions than there are answers, but Dr. Uzma Hasan, pediatric infectious disease specialist, walks us through what we do know so we can all be better prepared if we encounter this illness.  

My Neck, My Back, My... Goodness

Seth Grossman, MD, a fellowship-trained orthopedic spine surgeon, discusses his most common consults; how to differentiate emergent spine injuries from less emergent issues, and why both patients and practitioners alike should be doing yoga, Pilates, and trying to fly like Superman.  

Present Your Medical Device Idea to Industry

Michael Graffeo is a 20 year veteran of the medical device industry.  He discusses how to put your best foot forward, prevent reproducing the mistakes of the past, and why it isn't just important to just present why your idea is so great, but possibly even more important to discuss why it isn't a risky idea.

Going Below the Belt: Refractory Pelvic Pain

As an otolaryngologist, if I had a patient who mentioned pelvic pain, I'd send them to an OB-GYN, or urologist.  I'd never think to send them to a physiatrist, a specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation.  This is why Dr. Tayyaba Ahmed is on the show today.  She treats the muscoloskeletal causes of pelvic pain and patients that she often sees have been refractory to multiple other treatments.  Dr. Ahmed is a fellow of the Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and a membe...

Benefits of Social Media for Physicians and Their Patients

Dr. Shikha Jain has amassed 1000 twitter followers in a year by making breakthroughs in oncologic research accessible to non-physicians and colleagues alike on twitter.  She is also the moderator of two physician Facebook groups.  We discuss the importance of having an online presence in order to build your practice and why physicians in particular need an online presence in order to combat the spread of misinformation by facilitating the spread of peer-reviewed, science based, relevant info...

The Physician's Road

Eric Tait is an internal medicine physician with an MBA and his own private equity investment firm, which he manages while still practicing medicine.  He has found the keys to happiness and fulfillment as a physician and wants to share it with the profession.  He breaks it down into paths or touchstones, broken down into wealth, practice, health, relationships and personal development.   Find more about Dr. Tait at the links below. https://www.facebook.com/thephysiciansroad http://vern...

Improving the Patient Experience

Common Misconceptions about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Poopisode

The ideas expressed on this podcast are those of the interviewer and interviewee and do not represent those of our respective employers.  This podcast is intended for medical professionals.  The information is to be used in the context of your own clinical judgement and those on this podcast accept no liability for the outcomes of medical decisions based on this information.  As the radiologists like to say, clinical correlation is required.  This is not medical advice and even though the ma...

Introduction to Advocacy for Physicians

The ideas expressed on this podcast are those of the interviewer and interviewee and do not represent those of our respective employers.  This podcast is intended for medical professionals.  The information is to be used in the context of your own clinical judgement and those on this podcast accept no liability for the outcomes of medical decisions based on this information.  As the radiologists like to say, clinical correlation is required.  This is not medical advice and even though the ma...