Two companies that originated in California are the subject of today’s email: McDonald’s and In-N-Out. One is a franchise (McDonalds), and the other is owned (In-N-Out, owned by the Snyder family). Everybody in the world has been to a McDonald’s at...

A couple years ago I was treating a patient in her home. She was in her late 70s, connected to an oxygen concentrator. Her husband and daughter were there. I had been there for 45 minutes, and I asked the patient to stand up one last time. The daugh...

When’s the last time you saw somebody reading a book? I bet you can’t. But you people staring at their phones every hour every day. Since the introduction of “smartphones” in 2007, these devices have captured a disproportionate amount of your atten...

If you’re a private practice owner, you know that you have local competition. A quick Google search will show several other practices or clinics in your area offering the same, or similar, service as you. That means you have to have a reason why your...

I graduated from PT school 10 years ago. In fact, I saw my first patient as a PT ten years ago today. PT school prepared me for that moment: the moment you realize you’re on your own and nobody is coming to save you. The patient is in front of you,...

“If you build it, they will come.” Earlier this year, I watched the movie Field of Dreams (1989). It’s a fun movie and it makes you feel good about America. Ray Konsella is a farmer in Iowa who hears a message to cut down his crops and build a baseba...

The latest blockbuster drug to dazzle Americans is semaglutide (Ozempic, Rybelsus, WeGovy) and its close cousin tirzepatide (Maunjaro). Semaglutide was approved by prescription in March 2022 and already tens of millions of Americans are taking it. No...

Your physician is burned out. Can the bots be the solution? Healthcare professionals deal with burnout every day for a variety of reasons: excessive documentation and charting, administration and bureaucracy, pay cuts, Medicare cuts, unnecessary meet...

During the COVID pandemic, YouTube started to put a certain physician in my suggested feed. His name was Dr. Suneel Dhand, an internist in the northeast US. Dhand questioned the decisions that public health authorities were making regarding the vacc...

I’m not a big fan of celebrity physicians. Dr. Mehmet Oz is the first one that comes to mind. He gives general advice on each show but knows that medicine needs to be personal. What’s worse is that each expert he invites to the show gives contradicto...