I’ve seen a few articles but this was my favorite part from the New York Times:

Within minutes, a neonatal care nurse, a pediatric doctor and an obstetrician-gynecologist, among other festival attendees from nearby camps, filled their camper. The man who identified himself as an OB-GYN was wearing nothing but his underwear as he helped Ms. Thompson deliver the placenta.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/us/burning-man-baby.html (sorry I don’t subscribe so don’t have a gift article link)

From the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/31/fda-official-youtube-videos

Dr. Jonathan Howard’s YouTube channel, which featured problematic public statements made by health figures during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been permanently removed by YouTube after receiving six copyright strikes from Dr. Vinay Prasad. The channel was relatively small and primarily served as a repository of clips used to support Howard’s writing on Science-Based Medicine. The circumstances behind the strikes remain unclear (was it automated or manual, triggered by SBM's posts?), as Dr. Prasad has not commented on the matter.

There are a lot of quacks out there no question, and they have always been around since the olden times, the snake oils, the magical elixirs and those sleazy salesmen depicted in the old westerns.

But that being said, I’ve definitely noted an uptick of quacks with increasingly bold claims and aggressive marketing strategies across social media on all platforms. False claims across the board, conflict of interest all the time, advocating against fact and studies to push their own quackery marketing. And of course always “naturopathic”, “holistic”, and “functional”. I was just seeing this one about Jenn Simmons where she was advocating against mammograms and pushing for alternative Non FDA tests, and of course pushing for her own imaging as well. Outside of financial gain you’d want to question why they are doing this. With stupidity on the rise exponentially in this country I’d imagine they are probably very successful too, which means whoever gets their shitshow down the line will have a much more difficult time. Wanted to hear your thoughts on this topic

seriously, these names add little to nothing to understanding the condition. from the various triads to the many fractures (so, so many), the disadvantages of c̶r̶a̶m̶m̶i̶n̶g̶ learning these names far outweigh any given advantage. yes, it's easier to say your patient presented with features of kawasaki's disease, or beck's triad, or that you performed a whipple's procedure, but that is frankly the only positive i could think of. it needlessly complicates learning. it inflates the already bloated egos of clinicians (not to mention it stands against the ethics of self-advertisement). and there's also the risk of a lack of uniformity across regions.

is there a way authorities could slowly, subtly but surely phase out using eponymous conditions? maybe teaching these conditions using standard descriptions, then mentioning the eponym as a footnote (for example, hsp vs iga vasculitis, gastrinoma vs zes, or extra-articular distal radius # + dorsal displacement vs colles... okay that last one is a mouthful but still) could help phase it out. or using only unambiguous terms in cme or emr. or not mentioning them entirely in daily discourse altogether. i dunno. i'm just tired of racking my brain anytime i see the names of two guys from 120 years ago as the reason why my patient can make themselves into a doughnut yet have poorly healed scars over their body.

With AI medical scribes becoming popular, do any of you use one that allows audio playback? Do you find yourself editing the transcript at all? Curious if this would yield useful for reviewing notes especially for longer conversations to reduce hallucinations.

Inspired by the "unnecessary head CT scans in ER" thread...

For states with poor malpractice climates, what if you were to add a form to "consent to care" that is "opt out" of legal avenues for malpractice in favor of an arbitration type arrangement?

Depending on the patient's choice, they are treated with "defensive medicine" in mind or not, in a fully transparent manner...

https://radiologybusiness.com/topics/healthcare-management/healthcare-quality/80-requests-emergency-head-ct-inadequate-single-center-study-finds?fbclid=IwZnRzaAMgPiJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHuaQlQEH9FOwzL3Kpy62IMVHL6es-nzDx9CSzb8MEbAsCVdJgIqUYfxl3zUQ_aem_lwhylv1Rqbjtxbq4SisGoA

We love our ER providers though. We buy them the best Christmas gifts. Without them, Incoukd never afford my yacht… appropriately named, “Rule Out Dissection”.

Curious if folks have seen this yet - this is a huge verdict, but the articles I’ve seen are real thin on details (like the “dangerously high” Pitocin dose, how long the tracing was bad, etc.).

So I live in one of those dumbass states where we now need prescriptions to get COVID vaccines and I'm sure other ones are coming. Obviously since healthcare is so accessible and affordable this won't be a barrier to anyone. /S

Tell me the downsides of having a five minute free "visit" with people in my community and prescribing the COVID vaccine.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2838439

Further evidence that the flu vaccine is safer than the real influenza infection for myocarditis and pericarditis.

Note that there is another pre-specified secondary analysis of the same trial that also found a lower rate of cardiovascular hospitalizations with the high-dose influenza vaccine, also published today: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2838476

In a new, lengthy interview on Friday, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis explained why he resigned from the CDC, warning the agency is “past the point of no return.” He said, “The CDC you knew is over. Unless someone takes radical action, there is nothing there that can be salvaged.” Daskalakis pointed to scientific staff being sidelined, vaccine guidance shaped by ideology, and leaders pushing anti-vaccine rhetoric.

His departure came amid a dramatic walkout by other senior officials from CDC headquarters earlier this week.

The physicians here hardly need to be reminded of the litigious nature of our society in the US. In 2020 when disaster struck, the public heavily funded Project Warp Speed to develop, produce and distribute a vaccine for COVID-19. US Taxpayers. Any plans to remove those vaccines for which WE the taxpayers footed the bill should be treated as defrauding us. Just the way Medicare fraud is treated. We got a bill and now we are cut off from services.

Unless, I’m hearing from professional medical associations the risk vs benefit isn’t appropriate for me as an individual. Or my doctor. Period.

Instead of trying to prove expertise which is useless with tiny worm brain, I think it best to sue the b*astards. Ideas? Attorney General for states? For medical associations? Clearly, the DOJ and HHS are useless.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8426978/

Hello everyone. As far as I remember, the annual flu meeting was canceled back in February by RFK and has not ever been rescheduled. The hospital i go to medical school in is going to start their annual flu pod next month, but if the flu meeting was never held, how did manufacturers decide what strain of flu to target? Are they reusing last years flu? Or perhaps basing it off another countries data? Im just wondering if I'll need to travel to Canada or something to get an actually effective flu shot this year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/well/cvs-pharmacy-covid-vaccine-16-states.html

Basically CVS blames the federal government for the uncertainty where some states forbid pharmacists from administering vaccines when the ACIP has not recommended it. In particular, Dr. "Senator Bill Cassidy — Republican of Louisiana and the chairman of the Senate’s health committee — has called for the [ACIP] to be “indefinitely” postponed. "

These states included are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia, along with the District of Columbia.

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned this week as CDC’s director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, is being praised by current and former public health officials for standing firm on science.

Colleagues described him as a principled leader unwilling to let politics override evidence-based medicine. His resignation letter accused the Trump administration and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of undermining scientific integrity, but supporters say his decision shows his commitment to protecting public health. On Thursday, as he walked out to throngs of employees cheering and crying, he made a promise to be their greatest supporter on the outside.

https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/mayo-clinic-uses-ai-to-achieve-breakthrough-in-diagnosing-cancers/

Radiologists, whatre your thoughts on this? I know any AI in relation to Radiology discourse gets beaten into submission in these parts, but pretty interesting for the likely future of radiology. Reportedly able to detect pancreatic cancer 438 days earlier than previously. AI Lead at Mayo and Radiologist says in the interview "I am about 50% being able to pick up these early-stage cancers, whereas this model that developed can actually pick it up 97% of the time".

I work only in ICUs, and the mortality rate in my units is somewhat high (between 30–40%). Whenever a patient passes away, I feel that everything we did for them was actually a harm... Every needle stick to draw blood, the suffering of having a tube down their throat, the noise and lights 24/7. I feel like it was all a harm, a great suffering, only for them to die anyway after days or weeks... This makes me sad about my work. Should we be palliating almost all of these 30-40% patients?

Is this thought true? Am I having a false impression of reality? How do you feel about this, and what do you do to justify your work in such cases?

With the recent shifts coming from the CDC, Department of Health, and Medicare under the new administration, I can’t help but feel like practicing physicians are being squeezed harder than ever. Between increasing administrative burdens, reimbursement cuts, and rapidly changing guidelines regarding vaccinations, the environment is going to become even more strenuous in the near future.

I’m curious how others here feel? Arewe approaching the point where physicians will need to make a collective stand? A national walkout out?

I know many of us are burnt out, overworked and yet the policies keep piling on. Is there any realistic way for us, as a profession, to push back in a unified manner before things get worse?

Sincerely,

A Hospitalist.

Most companies say that they are, and my company has told me it's ok to use. I know I am the only one using it and I'm paying for it using our company business card. I have a couple of questions for those using scribes- 1) does your company have to approve it for your entire office? Are any of you individual users? 2) if I don't enter any identifiable patient data is it truly HIPAA complaint? 3) do you all type up a paragraph in your patient note to prove that you have obtained consent?

So we having been seeing a lot of new COVID cases at my clinic. Alot of sore throats and respiratory complaints. I can't seem to find a COVID vaccine anywhere due to the changing guidelines from rfk. Does anyone know if/ when they are coming out? Are they still going to be available to everyone? Or it is just 65 plus now? Everyone is going to get this new strain before a vaccine is even available even though they were previously approved. PS FUCK YOU RFK JR

Seems to me that Doctors have ceded a lot of space to management and administration for far too long. I can appreciate that clinical duties are paramount. However, several decisions that directly and indirectly impact patient care plans, safety, and performance get taken many a time without the doctors being adequately involved or designing them. It seems to me that hospital administrators prefer keeping their doctors at the periphery, especially when it comes to economics.

Most Doctors, privately and in smaller groups, continue to rue and helplessly grumble over their almost complete loss of franchise and agency within the hospital system. Unlike in the past, when it was just the doctor and the patient in a “parent-child” relationship, healthcare systems are now incredibly complex. Hospitals are heavily indebted to banks, shareholders, PE, increasingly powerful regulators, and litigious “consumerist” patients.

There is also a growing trend towards privatization of healthcare in emerging economies. In markets like India, almost 70% of all care is in the private sector. Even in countries like China, where the state is pervasive, over the last decade, the share of private hospitals has increased from 10-12% to about 40-45%. The USA has a strong network of private hospitals. Fee-for-service payment mechanisms continue to be dominant and contribute close to 70% of the healthcare provided in the USA. In a largely private system, economics will always be front and center. 

But the balance between economics and medicine is a gentle and delicate one. A balance that can only be maintained with alignment and mutual coordination. The risk to doctors is when “good medicine” cedes too much space to “good economics.”

Doctors have no choice but to “grab the bull by the horns” to find the sweet spot where “good compromises” between good medicine and good economics can peacefully co-exist. The Covid pandemic demonstrated to us that doctors must be at the forefront of designing and delivering care. There is nothing that is non-medical about a hospital enterprise.

We need our Doctors in the Boardrooms as much as in the Procedure/Operating Rooms. 

Views ?

FTR, I think RFK is a dangerous hack, the worst thing that has ever happened to medicine in America. You don’t have to convince me of that.

But I can’t find any evidence for the claim about eugenics. Usually people cite the proposed database for tracking data on autism. We track data on just about every other medically-related issue; maybe an autism database is a bad idea, but I still don’t see an obvious connection to eugenics.

What’s the support for his claim about eugenics?

I saw a physician on tikTok claim that Aetna is downcoding her Level 5s and 4s using AI and if you wanted to appeal, you had to fax in a paper?

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, one of the nation’s leading infectious-disease experts and longtime LGBTQ+ health advocate, has resigned from CDC. In a scathing letter, he accused HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of sidelining science, erasing transgender people from policy, and dismantling vaccine protections, warning the U.S. is being pushed back to a “pre-vaccine era.”

His resignation comes amid a wave of senior CDC departures, including Director Susan Monarez, who was forced out but is fighting legally after refusing to rubber-stamp changes to vaccine policy.

Full story here: https://www.advocate.com/news/demetre-daskalakis-blistering-resignation

It seems silly to drag in a patient for a thyroid med adjustment when I only ask them a few questions and then prescribe their meds. But for me it’s about 7min of work—review lab, open chart, review dosing hx, use MD brain to see if they need an adjustment, e-prescribe meds, write an order for their 6w lab check, set a auto-reminder for them to return in 6w for said blood draw, and communicate with them. How do you manage this?