Syndicom

If I am not for me, then who is for me?
If I am just for me, then who am I?
And if not now, then when?
-Jewish koan
I watched the film, The English Surgeon last week, 3 times.
The film follows brain surgeon Dr. Henry Marsh as he openly confronts the dilemmas of the doctor patient relationship [...]

As a list maker myself, I applauded the release of the New England Journal’s article this week, and as a patient who has had to endure the redirection of surgeons to my case, I was thankful for it. As we discussed earlier this week though, what is the true effect of this checklist? Some will [...]

What does it mean to be a surgeon? And what does it mean to do surgery?
Do you love being in the operating room? Do you like the art of medicine? Do you like the technical side of medicine? Do you like the challenge of medicine? Do you love helping people, perhaps saving people, through [...]

“What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.” (William Blake, poet).
If I was to ask you what it meant to be a surgeon [...]

As we approach the holiday season, let’s spare a thought for all those to whom our patients are connected. Recently, I called my pediatrician to set up a well child visit for my son to find out he is on leave as he is having back surgery. An older gentleman who suffers from scoliosis, I [...]

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, in his book Weaving the Web, claims that his original vision of the web was one of collaboration. He wanted people to participate in two-way sharing of information and decades after the web was born, web 2.0 is breathing life back into his original vision. Medicine has always [...]