If, like me, you came of age in the 1980s and 1990s, you probably don’t remember a time when you weren’t warned to stay out of the sun. The message for the past few decades has been that sun exposure = skin cancer, and that if you absolutely have to go out during daylight hours for more than a nanosecond, to please not do so without first donning sunscreen and a full suit of body armor.
It’s true that excessive sun exposure can cause skin damage and increase the risk of skin cancers. But there’s (pun intended) a wrinkle to this. And that is that limiting sun exposure might also increase your risk of getting lots of other diseases, including heart disease and virtually every other known cancer. I’ll discuss some data about this in a moment, but first I want to just share some thoughts about sun exposure in general:
This post will be short. It’s Thanksgiving week and I want to wish all of our patients and readers a very safe and happy holiday. Though the office will be closed for the long holiday weekend, we are hosting family here in town and I will be around, so to all of my patients – I am available both by phone and in person if something urgent does come up.
Rather than just leave things at that, I’d also like to do something here that I’ve been meaning to do for awhile: post a link to a series of articles I wrote under an assumed name a few years back. At that time, I was employed by a large group practice and didn’t want to say or do anything that could put any of my partners in a difficult situation, so I wrote these under the name of “Reginald Bittermilk.” But since I now work independently, I no longer feel that restriction.
I wrote these articles at the request of a friend who wanted to publish a series of essays about what is wrong with America’s healthcare system from a doctor’s perspective, and what some possible solutions might be to fix things. If you find dealing with a mainstream doctor’s office to be frustrating, I hope this series will give you some insight into why the system is so broken, and some empathy for the challenges that doctors and nurses face every day in trying to deliver good care to their patients. When you need a break from your family this coming holiday weekend, you can read the series of articles at the following link:
This is not because I have anything against supplements per se. Some in fact have good evidence for them and can be quite beneficial. But it’s rare that a supplement is the most important part of the healing process, and often they are a band aid of sorts for something else that is going wrong in a patient’s life.
When my wife and I opened Dr. Fischer, MD on February 6th of this year, we had just one single patient. This past week, we signed up our 100th patient. That’s 100 patients in just nine months.
When we first opened, many people asked me how we could possibly be successful with this business model. I was very confident we would be, but of course you can’t know for sure if something is going to work until you actually try it. Well, we’ve tried it, and here are a few facts:
The consultant who helped us set this practice up (and who was also very confident we would be successful) projected that we’d be at about fifty patients at this point. We are now at double that amount.
We are already profitable as a business
In roughly another forty patients, I will match what I was earning at my last job
If you are a fellow physician thinking about setting up a practice like ours, my advice is to get off the fence and do it. You won’t fail. And feel free to reach out to me if you’d like to ask any questions.
If you are a patient who is thinking of checking out our practice, don’t delay scheduling your free meet and greet. At the rate we are growing, it will only be a few more months before we have to slow down the number of new patients we can take on.
Finally, a heartfelt thank you to all of our patients who have made us a success. It’s a true honor and privilege to be entrusted with your medical care.
This blog post is going to be a little different than usual. I’m not going to cover a study or discuss a particular medical topic. Rather, I just want to share some personal thoughts on this political moment.
I am not going to endorse a particular candidate, nor a particular set of policies. Like any other citizen, I have my thoughts and ideas about this stuff, and I will be voting today for my preferred (or, more accurately, my less non-preferred) candidates. But as a doctor, I am meticulously non-partisan. I take care of Democrats and Republicans and anybody else equally, and it’s my job to stay out of the political fray and do my absolute best for each and every person who comes to me. I took an oath when I entered this profession, and that was to serve my patients to my utmost. If a person whose politics were truly loathsome showed up at my office (let’s just imagine Adolf Hitler himself, to make the point clear), I would still do my very best to help them with their medical issues.
I’ve been meaning to review this study for some time now. A few years ago, a cardiologist at the University of Texas by the name of Dr. Ben Levine conducted a study that ought to be on the minds of anybody who is interested in living a longer and healthier life.
Dr. Levine and his colleagues put middle aged adults (around age 50) who were previously sedentary but otherwise healthy on an exercise protocol for two years, and performed various tests on their hearts before and after the study. They found that after two years, the subject’s hearts had effectively reverted back to those of a 30 year old’s. In other words, exercise made these people’s hearts age in reverse by almost twenty years.
