Two weeks after my wife has a hysterectomy, she begins experiencing fevers that rise and spike each evening: 99.2, then 100.7, then 101.5. I am an infectious-disease doctor and a consultant for Medicare. And I am puzzled and a bit frightened. “What do we do?” asks my wife — also a physician. She is lying […]

Medical tourism Re: “The future of American medicine may be offshore” [Apr. 5]: The interest in getting much less costly health care overseas is understandable. But what happens to a patient who has major surgery in India, for example, has immediate post-op care there and everthing is fine until they come back to the United States and […]

Over the week I am received numerous emails about how many of you have received low cost high quality care in Mexico, India, and South America. Also, there have been concerns about the follow up and quality of care. Market forces are powerful and the wind of medical tourism will be yet another force impacting […]

Little while ago I wrote about my trip to Indore, India and compared it with the problems and issues we face in Memphis. HERE IT IS: Memphis and Indore – my homes   I have been away — 8,500 miles away in India, where I was born and lived until age 10. I was vacationing […]

Published: December 20, 2010 Some years ago, I got a call at 3 a.m. from the hospital because a patient of mine had spiked a high fever. Suspecting an infection, I called in some antibiotics. A few hours later, a frantic nurse called to say my patient had turned red and was wheezing, likely from […]

On an unusually quiet Sunday afternoon in the intensive care unit, Memphian Kristen Sharp lay in bed attached to a heart pump. Her tightly braided hair was pulled to the side of her thin, brown face. She gave me a beaming smile. It was Halloween day, and life had played many tricks on her, but […]

Even with malpractice insurance, doctors opt for expensive, defensive medicine Some months ago, the receptionist in my clinic handed me a registered letter. The name of the sender seemed familiar. “Dear Sir,” the letter read. “Please be advised that this letter serves as official notice that I am considering a potential claim against you in […]

Published: March 17, 2009 “Our conference was being held over lunch, but Pat, a middle-aged health-care consultant, did not touch a bite of her food. When I asked if something was wrong, she revealed her lifelong battle with Crohn’s disease, an inflammation of the bowels that causes diarrhea and abdominal pain. I asked what her […]

Published: February 17, 2009 “Did you know that women live longer than men?” I asked my wife. Of course she did — and not just because, like me, she is a physician. Anybody who walks into a nursing home can see the imbalance. Most people’s grandmothers outlive their grandfathers, and 85 percent of centenarians are […]

Published: February 10, 2009 I was skeptical when my hospital embarked several years ago on an initiative to reduce the number of hospital-acquired infections in our intensive care unit. These are infections that originate from the tubes and catheters inserted into the body — for example, ventilator-associated pneumonia, related to a tube lodged in the […]

Published: December 09, 2008 Ten years ago, an intelligent, reserved software engineer — a woman with the complexion of Halle Berry and the physique of a marathoner — came to my infectious-disease clinic, accompanied by her fiance. They’d been referred to me a few weeks after a rash and pneumonia prompted a clinic doctor to […]

Published: November 25, 2008 Last month at a luncheon marking International Infection Prevention Week at the National Press Club, some speakers reminded me of a shameful and frightening statistic: Almost 60 percent of American health-care workers do not receive the flu vaccine. Let me put that in context: Influenza, commonly called the flu, strikes 5 […]

Why the Presidential Race Should Skirt The Doctor’s OfficePublished: October 28, 2008 A few weeks ago, as I was making rounds on the oncology floor, one of my patients asked, out of the blue, “Hey, Doc, who you gonna vote for?” I would have expected this patient to have other questions on his mind. He’s […]

Lack of Compensation Can Tempt Doctors to Tailor Their Care to a Patient’s CoveragePublished: October 14, 2008 When I walked into the hospital room of a 19-year-old woman, a foul smell all but overwhelmed me. I called a nurse to assist me and saw her, too, catch her breath.When we examined the young woman we […]

Published: September 16, 2008 From the patient’s point of view, doctors and hospital officials can seem to be a monolithic medical power structure. But in fact, physicians and administrators often do not see eye to eye.Read More

We Need Carrots and Sticks to Reduce Infection RatesPublished: August 05, 2008 One morning on hospital rounds, I saw a physician colleague enter the intensive care unit where a patient lay intubated and sedated. With his hands unwashed and ungloved, the physician palpated the patient’s abdomen, scratched his own head and then placed his stethoscope […]

Published: July 15, 2008 Last summer, my oldest daughter, Sapna, passed a multiple-choice driver’s exam, secured a learner’s permit and asked to sit in the driver’s seat. This was a source of concern for me. As an epidemiologist, it is my job to look at incidence and prevalence of disease in large populations and suggest […]

Published: April 15, 2008 Each morning as I head for my morning rounds, I routinely hurry through the hallway alongside the cardiac catheterization lab not noticing what goes on inside. But, this morning it was different. On the table, under the x-ray beams, with a catheter tunneled into the arteries of his heart was my […]

Patient’s Routine Visit Becomes An Ethical Challenge for a DoctorPublished: March 04, 2008 My patient had come for a routine doctor visit. He was a well-built, soft-spoken middle-aged man who was always polite, respectful and adhered meticulously to his HIV medication. He complained only if he was in a great deal of pain or discomfort. […]

Published: April 15, 2007 At our hospital in Tennessee not long ago, I saw my picture on the hallway message board alongside those of other doctors in a display thanking us for our service. My Asian-Indian complexion set me apart — it’s something that I am rarely conscious about in everyday life. It got me […]