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Imagine a hands-on experience where experts work with small groups of learners instead of the traditional “pre-conference workshop” followed by hours of lectures. We did this at the recent Asian Pacific meeting held in Australia under the leadership of Dr. David Fielding, and again at a bronchoscopy course led by Dr. Javier Flandes in Spain. [Read More]
This year, in addition to losing my mother, I also grieved a few days later with a friend for the loss of hers. When the father of another friend passed away unexpectedly, I was sad because he and I, despite our age difference, shared a connection as if we had known each other in another [Read More]
Feared and often misused, the word standardization sometimes causes confusion in the health care setting. By definition, it applies to any process used to develop and implement metrics that specify essential characteristics of something whose control and uniformity are desired. In this sense, standardization may apply to almost anything; rules, technologies, services, commercial products, behaviors, and measurements. [Read More]
Many say we know little about COVID-19, when in fact we have learned much since the start of the pandemic. The abundance of contradictory and often disputed information is consistent with the nature of scientific inquiry. This is because our goals as scientists are to make observations, challenge what might be considered facts, question results, [Read More]
Many say we know little about COVID-19, when in fact we have learned much since the start of the pandemic. The abundance of contradictory and often disputed information is consistent with the nature of scientific inquiry. This is because our goals as scientists are to make observations, challenge what might be considered facts, question results, [Read More]
I’m alone in the patient compartment of our rig, separated from my driver, who’s also an EMT. He can only hear me through the thick glass window. The ventilator fan is set on high, just like we were told to do after the World Health Organization declared the Coronavirus a pandemic with fatal repercussions. We’ve [Read More]
With the number of scientific articles about COVID-19 increasing, it seems we have entered a new era where our mantra must be “Reader Beware.” For reasons known only to their editorial boards, even reputed medical journals are falling prey to the temptation of publishing studies plagued with poor methodology, incomplete information, or conclusions that are [Read More]
In Judeo-Christian tradition, this is a time for joy and celebration, whether to honor the resurrection of Jesus Christ or the liberation of the Hebrew people from bonds of oppression in ancient Egypt. Some say the word Easter comes from the Old English word ēostre. While the etymology is debated, some scholars associate this [Read More]
This is a second post relating to the promising role of artificial intelligence in interventional pulmonology. My point is that lung specialists will spend less time learning facts and figures that are easily replaced by computer-generated analyses of complex algorithms. Much of this is because of Deep learning. This subset of machine learning (programs that [Read More]
In 1826, The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin wrote “But with the truth he attracted hearts. But with science he quelled mores.” (From, Stanzas). Such words could be used to describe the life and work of my friend Professor Viktor Sokolov (1946-2019), who died last month at the young age of 73. Viktor was an accomplished [Read More]