Killing Care Softly It’s official: doctors treat charts, not people. Harvard researcher Russell Phillips reckons physicians of many stripes are now “data entry technicians.” My preferred term is “checklist monkeys.” The results for your health care? Not good. How much time and energy are really wasted? Recent reports show ER physicians spending 44% of their time […]
Learning From The Next Ebola (10/20/14)
When the Past Is Prologue Humans don’t see threats until they’re kicking at the door. But that does not mean you can’t put a crisis to good use. Chance rules the world. As Nassim Taleb showed in “The Black Swan” and other books, low probability events can create high impacts. But the threat to the […]
Crazy About Drugs (2/4/13)
A Problem of Law Item: An Egyptian rights lawyer is sentenced to 5 years in jail and 300 lashes of the whip for bringing anti-anxiety drugs (xanax – alprazolam) into Saudi Arabia. The judge notes the perpetrator’s “good morals” in explaining his “lenient” verdict (anti-anxiety drugs are banned in Saudi Arabia.) Item: Florida regulators led […]