Two-month check-in.
Inside Medicine has been at Substack for two months now! When I first started here, I committed to writing this newsletter five days per week for at least a few months. For the most part, I’ve actually been writing seven days per week, which leaves room for more variety—but is a lot of work! I hope you’re getting as much out of reading it as I am writing it.
Your feedback matters to me. I do this to learn and influence policy leaders, but the mainstay of my readers are not doctors or White House officials: you’re a bunch of smart, engaged people from all walks of life, who (apparently) want to hear the real-deal from a doctor on a frequent basis. The good news is that we are getting a lot of new readers and engagement, and the comments from paid subscribers have been excellent.
Below are the results from a two polls I’ve run in the last month. In response to your votes, I’ve started to do more writing about my clinical work in the ER (and will do more in the coming weeks and months); I’ve also begun sending the newsletter out at around 7:00-7:30am ET on weekdays, and 8am ET on weekends, instead of afternoons/evenings, since apparently, most of you are morning readers!
Results from Inside Medicine reader polls:
My next question for you is whether you’d like me to mix things up in terms of formatting. The obvious subtext is that keeping Inside Medicine going 5-7 days per week is sustainable for me for now, but it won’t be forever without growing the community of paid subscribers. With that said…
In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing about Covid-19, of course. You’ll notice that as we get further into the pandemic, the questions get less straightforward; good answers require the deep dives like those you’ve come to expect from Inside Medicine.
But I’ll also be writing about my work in the ER. The essays that have important public health implications I’ll always keep free. But the ones where I take you inside my clinical practice (while protecting patient privacy, of course), will often be paywalled—at least in part. Some planned upcoming pieces include:
One of the most perfect saves I’ve ever made in the ER. One of the best days of my career, and it came down to split-second decisions.
How I pop dislocated shoulders back in to place. (There are a many ways. But my trick is one that almost nobody thinks about).
A fascinating philosophical question I asked some of my emergency medicine residents recently. (I teach them how to think like an ER doctor, not just the facts of medicine. I’ll bring you in to that!)
The story of two nearly identical x-rays which required two vastly different approaches to treatment. (Again, how ER doctors think.)
And, okay, Covid. I’ll finally write about if and when I’ll get my children booster vaccinations. (I’ll keep the basics of that one free, but not the parts where I plan to share the details of my personal situation).
If any or all of that sound interesting to you, I hope you’ll upgrade now. And if you’re not up for it, you’ll still get all the free content, which for the foreseeable future will continue to comprise a majority of this newsletter…including this ridiculous headshot that I took in 2021 which I never use:
Anywho! Thanks for being in the community! See you tomorrow…
-Jeremy