Healthcare

When you see a doctor, you have three choices: Ignore their advice and go somewhere else, trust them to solve your problem and move on, or engage with them as an advisor for life. Magic happens when doctor and patient bond forever.

Hospitalization can be a pretty bad experience. Almost everyone needs a guardian to protect them while there. Here are some observations that may help you.

The PCL (posterior cruciate ligament) can be ruptured in car accidents when the knee hits the dashboard and in ski accidents when knees get impacted in wild falls. If left alone, the injured knee degrades over time. Understanding the injury and novel ways to treat it has changed its natural history.

Artificial Intelligence-enabled systems that interpret radiologic studies are advancing to the point where they often match the best radiologists in the world. And they are getting better every day. From CT scans to MRIs, angiograms to Doppler studies, the data captured is digital—and digital data can be read by machines.

If you want to be treated with a better than 75% chance of success—and if you value excellence as much as kindness—I suggest you demand that creativity be part of the doctor’s repertoire.

Keeping down health care costs is a good idea—but not when it stifles innovation and hobbles new medical techniques.

Does “Big Data” equal Big Health Care—or just a Big Mess?

The science of life extension seems completely seductive—who wouldn’t want to enjoy a longer lifespan? But it comes with surprisingly huge costs.

In the traditional model of medicine, people visit the doctor when they’re sick or injured. But one of the most important fields of medicine today involves “predictive science:” learning well beforehand what will cause disease or injury, and treating it pro-actively. At the moment it sounds like science fiction.

A new doctor, fresh out of a top residency and fellowship, wants all the right things at the wrong time.

The answer is not obvious. Doctors know enormous amounts of data and have years of clinical experience. But what do they know about which devices and implants to use?

In medicine, as with sports, it doesn’t help to be distracted by an unsuccessful approach as you are dealing with the immediate consequences. Practice being a Monday morning quarterback.

Electronic medical records mean doctors and nurses spend too much time on data entry. Artificial Intelligence has long since solved highly formulaic situations and could prompt doctors to be better at their jobs.

When it comes to treatment options, don't always believe what you read in the papers. Headlines are often generalities. Be your own advocate. Find out what will work for you.

In orthopedics, if you want to see what is truly possible right now, then you need only look at the type of care afforded to professional and elite athletes.