Inside Medicine
An introduction.
Here's the plan: I am going to document the next 10 years of my medical career. I'm going to do that right here on Bulletin. Together, we are going to go Inside Medicine.
I'm so glad you're here to join me on this journey!
As much as possible, I will write candidly and openly about my work as an emergency medicine physician. Yes, that includes my experiences treating patients. But this newsletter will center on data-driven analyses of new and existing medical and health research. We will go beyond health headlines. We will blaze past the hype. We will find diamonds in the rough. We will not just "go with the flow."
My goal is that when you read Inside Medicine, you will leave empowered with three levels of knowledge: what we know, how we know it, and what it means for all of us.
For the foreseeable future, I will write at least twice per week about topics ranging from Covid-19 to heart attacks, from the opioid epidemic to medicine in outer space. After all, emergency physicians really do have to know something about everything. The plan is to let you in on all of it.
When you sign up for Inside Medicine (click the "Subscribe" button at the bottom of this page), you'll automatically get an email from me at InsideMedicine@Bulletin.com twice per week, for free. You don't even need to have a Facebook account to read or subscribe to this newsletter. I'll also file less formal dispatches after some of my clinical shifts and as news breaks. How often I do this (and how often I email you with these) will depend on how this new platform develops, and I'll try to use my best judgement. Hopefully, I'll get a sense for what's working once we launch.
One note about my writing about my clinical experiences: my ethical principles (not to mention legal obligations) mean that I will have to change details of the ER cases I discuss and will often not be talking about cases on the same day or week in which they actually occurred. However, you will still get a unique lens into what being a physician is really like, in the year 2021 and beyond.
Who am I? I'm a board-certified emergency medicine physician. I studied infectious diseases and immunology and then went to medical school in New York City at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. I completed my residency training at Mount Sinai Hospital on the Upper East side of Manhattan and Elmhurst Hospital in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens. I'm currently on staff at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital in Boston, and on faculty at Harvard Medical School. That means I've treated both the rich and famous and the undocumented and most needy. I've seen the effects, both positive and negative, of some of the most advanced medical treatments known to humanity, and I've had my hands on dying hearts with bullet wounds, often all in the same day.
I lead research on Covid-19 and other topics. Obviously, I love to write. You may have seen my work in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Scientific American, and Slate, where I was a contributing writer for several years. If you're a healthcare professional, you may have seen my research and writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the British Medical Journal, and others.
Who are you? You're someone who wants to know what's really happening in the world of medicine. You're someone who loves to understand things on more than a surface level. You're a person who, like me, is willing to change their beliefs to fit new data, rather than just search for data to fit existing beliefs. You're someone with a passion for knowledge. You're someone I'd like to have a coffee with and talk about ideas with.
For now, the best way to reach me is to leave a comment right here on the newsletter, over on my Facebook Page, or at the Inside Medicine Facebook Group. I'm also over on Twitter and Instagram. Soon, you'll be able to reply to my emails as well. Let me know what you think, what you'd like me to write about, and tell me your questions.
I'm excited to be here. I'm truly excited to have you join me.
Let's go Inside Medicine.