Who am I?
This is a question I should probably ask myself more regularly. I can say that I spend most of my time in the roles of father, husband, and family physician, and I find myself questioning what comes out of my mouth in all three capacities. I have learned to appreciate the value of curiosity, which comes easily to me; as well as humility, which does not.
Why am I doing this?
Another good question. I have wanted to write regularly on medicine for years, but it took the pandemic to move into action. The same principles that motivated me to write about Covid (“why are Experts and Commentators so loathe to admit the uncertainty of their positions?”) apply to the rest of medicine. Medicine is hard; headlines are easy. I like to sort out which bits are likely to be true and helpful, and which bits are not.
What will you get out reading my substack?
I hope to turn out a post on a weekly basis, digging into a topical issue in health or medicine that I imagine to be of broad interest, explaining it in the way I like to answer my patients’ generally excellent questions over the last 20 years. What you won’t get is an opinion biased by anyone’s financial interest, or reliant on the conventional wisdom. I admit I like certain things in medicine more than others, though, and I have a hard time not playing favorites. I’m working on this, though.
