The other day I reached deep into the bottom drawer of my desk and emerged—not with what I was looking for—but rather a handful of badges. There, encased in plastic, were earlier versions of myself dating back more than 25 years to residency. Since then I’ve worked in a lot of hospitals, met a lot of doctors and nurses, and treated nearly 100,000 patients. Continue reading →

In April, I posted 2 essays on low back pain (“I’m skeptical about … low back pain,” parts 1 and 2). In them, I explained why the American way of treating this ubiquitous disorder is so expensive, wasteful, and ineffective. It relies largely on pharmaceuticals to mask pain, and technologies to image the spine that rarely affect patient outcomes. Continue reading →