A few years from now, and probably sooner than many people expect, we may no longer have to perform bariatric, or weight loss, surgery. Future generations will look aghast at the mutilating procedures patients suffered in the name of looking slim and healthy. Sleeve gastrectomy, roux-en-y gastric bypass, endoscopic gastric balloons, and many others will be obsolete.  Millions of people have suffered the pain and risks of the operations. If that wasn't bad enough, the complications are numerous. Anastomotic leaks, sepsis, perforations, strictures, chronic pain, chronic nausea and vomiti ..read more

After keeping the same home page image for years and years, because I'm too lazy to change up the pictures and formatting, I figured that with all the new artificial intelligence image generators out there, I can ask one to draw me an original artwork for my blog. I asked one to paint me an anesthesiologist at work in the style of cubism. The image at the top of the blog is what it came up with.  I would say it's not half bad. It actually looks like an anesthesiologist at the head of the table about to start induction. To his side is what might be an anesthesia tech getting the patient po ..read more

One of the most hotly anticipated products ever from Apple finally made its debut this month. This is the mixed reality headset that the company has been talking about for years. Named the Vision Pro, the presentation for the device took breaths away. Not least of which was the price, which was a startling $3499.  While most commentary described the cost as prohibitive and not affordable for regular users, there is at least one line of work where costs are no object. And I'm not talking about government procurements. In the medical field, where drugs can cost six figures a year and peop ..read more

The latest tech catchphrase is artificial intelligence, or AI. Everybody is predicting that AI will either be the savior that helps humankind become more efficient and potentially save the planet from destruction or it will be the computer technology that dooms Earth like SkyNet. In Hollywood, there is a writers strike taking place right now and a large part of the negotiations involves the use of AI to write scripts, possibly putting thousands of writers out of business. But do we really have that much to fear from AI? Perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves a bit with this current generati ..read more

Eric Greensmith, MD (from WSJ) I love this story. It gives me great hope as I transition into the second half of my career. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Eric Greensmith, MD (I believe his full name is James Eric Greensmith), an anesthesiologist at Milton Hershey Medical Center at Penn State Health, was starting to stare into the face of retirement and found it lacking. Sixty-seven years old at the time, he decided he wanted to try becoming a lifeguard again, just like he was fifty years prior. Except his physical conditioning was quite removed from five decades earlier. He ..read more

At least until FB lets me back in. Last week, Facebook disabled my account. There was no warning and no explanation. Just one day I couldn't log in and I received an error message that said my account has been disabled and to go to the Help Center for assistance. Down the rabbit hole I went as I waded through pages and pages of advice on how to retrieve my blog's account. All this was presciently described in a recent Wall Street Journal article about the travails of Facebook users who lost access to their accounts. The newspaper noted that Facebook does not have a phone number ..read more

We all know that lawyers can be lying, cheating scumbags that destroy all that is good in the world. (Obviously just being hyperbolic here.) Here is the story of a lawyer in Orange County, California that helped a physician get out of a malpractice suit by basically lying to the jury. The patient, Enrique Garcia Sanchez, was admitted into South Coast Global Medical Center in Santa Ana, CA in 2017 with alcoholic pancreatitis. He was unable to eat for over a month. His gastroenterologist, Dr. Essam Quiraishi elected to put in a PEG tube to facilitate his nutritional intake. He unfortunately perf ..read more

You've heard about the great incomes that anesthesiologists make. You long for the legendary lifestyle of working with propofol and volatile anesthetics. So now you're wondering what it takes to become an anesthesiologist.  You could search through the history of this blog to get all the scintillating details of anesthesiology as a career. Or you can read through this nice little article from Forbes on the process of becoming an anesthesiologist.  It details the long education process necessary to earn the title, at least a decade of schooling and training after high school. First ..read more

Medscape has released its annual Physician Compensation Report for 2022. The report polled over 13,000 doctors about their salaries and other details about their work. It looks like the pandemic induced reduction in physicians' incomes are over. For the first time in Medscape's survey history, all medical specialties saw increases in compensation during the past year. ENT topped the list with a 13% increase in average annual income. Anesthesiologists fared well, as usual. This year, anesthesiologists reported an average income of $405,000. That is up significantly from last year when they di ..read more

Think Wordle, the word guessing game, is too easy? You think five letter words are boring? Peeved that middle school kids are better at this game than you? MedPage Today has a new distraction for you. They call it Wordosis. First of all, the words in this game require SIX letters. So there's that challenge. Next the words are medically related so not just anyone can play it since medical terminology is an actual class in medical school. That adds a bit of exclusivity to this puzzle. Just don't play while you're supposed to be vigilantly monitoring your patient in the operating room. Good luc ..read more