Tag Archives: Education

New Article on Substack

A new essay has just been published on my Substack, The Art of Being Human.

In “The End of Automatic Authority,” I examine one of the quiet revolutions unfolding around us. For much of history, authority was rooted in privileged access to knowledge. Today, that foundation is rapidly disappearing. The democratization of information, accelerated by artificial intelligence, is reshaping how we learn, whom we trust, and what it truly means to possess expertise.

This essay explores why authority, respect, experience, and judgment should no longer be viewed as inseparable, and why the future belongs not to those who simply know more, but to those who can think more clearly, exercise sound judgment, and help others navigate uncertainty. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read it, and, as always, I welcome your thoughts and discussion.

You can read the essay on my Substack: The Art of Being Human.

If you enjoy these essays, I would greatly appreciate your support by subscribing, sharing them with others, or leaving a comment. Your engagement helps these conversations reach a wider audience.

Thank you.

Bronchoscopy Academy More modules added

Bronchoscopy Academy Modules with bronchoscopy image


Dear colleagues,

Another couple of educational modules were added to the Bronchoscopy Academy YouTube channel, expanding our growing library of foundational bronchoscopy and airway education resources designed for trainees, fellows, practicing clinicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, and others involved in pulmonary and airway care. More are coming in the next weeks!

Recent topics include:

• Normal laryngeal anatomy
• Laryngeal abnormalities
• Tracheal anatomy fundamentals
• Bronchoscopy equipment fundamentals
• Bronchoscopy brushing techniques
• Bronchoscopy reports and documentation
• Additional foundational airway recognition modules

These short educational videos emphasize practical anatomy, procedural fundamentals, airway recognition, and structured learning intended to support bronchoscopy education worldwide.

Videos may be viewed here:  New Modules Available

If you find the material useful, please Like, Subscribe, and Share to my YouTube channel to receive notifications as new modules are added.

My hope remains what it has long been: to help democratize bronchoscopy education and make high-quality learning resources more widely accessible.

With best wishes,

Henri Colt, M.D.
Bronchoscopy Academy
Bronchoscopy.org

New Bronchoscopy Academy Videos Available


Dear colleagues,

New educational modules have recently been added to the Bronchoscopy Academy YouTube channel, expanding our growing library of foundational bronchoscopy and airway education resources designed for trainees, fellows, practicing clinicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, and others involved in pulmonary and airway care. More are coming in the next weeks!

Recent topics include:

• Normal laryngeal anatomy
• Laryngeal abnormalities
• Tracheal anatomy fundamentals
• Bronchoscopy equipment fundamentals
• Bronchoscopy brushing techniques
• Bronchoscopy reports and documentation
• Additional foundational airway recognition modules

These short educational videos emphasize practical anatomy, procedural fundamentals, airway recognition, and structured learning intended to support bronchoscopy education worldwide.

Videos may be viewed here: New Modules Available

If you find the material useful, please Like, Subscribe, and Share to my YouTube channel to receive notifications as new modules are added.

My hope remains what it has long been: to help democratize bronchoscopy education and make high-quality learning resources more widely accessible.

With best wishes,

Henri Colt, M.D.
Bronchoscopy Academy
Bronchoscopy.org

A Final Note from Colt’s Corner

Substack Banner Henri Colt Art of Being Human


Dear Friends,

Over the past years, you chose to receive these brief reflections through Colt’s Corner. I have always been mindful that your attention is not casual—it is given, and you have generously subscribed to Colt’s Corner with interest and enthusiasm.

I’ve decided now to bring this work into a single, more deliberate space on Substack. Not simply as short reflections, but as a sustained body of writing that explores what it means to live, to act, and to care attentively. I publish essays and reflective pieces that move between clinical experience and personal narrative, between art, literature, philosophy, science, and medicine.

With that, Colt’s Corner will no longer be updated.

If these notes have been meaningful to you, I invite you to continue with me here: henricolt.substack.com

Who is the Best?

surgeon waiting at the cross roads at patient's bedside


Patients often ask a question that seems simple but resists a clear answer: Who is the best doctor for me? Even if transparent outcomes data were widely available, the answer would remain uncertain. Because excellence in medicine is not confined to what can be measured.

In the end, what patients are really asking is something deeper. Not just who can perform a procedure, but who knows when to act, when to wait, and how to navigate uncertainty. These are not matters of technical skill alone, but of judgment—and judgment, ultimately, reflects character.

👉 Read the full essay on Substack:
Who is the Best?
https://henricolt.substack.com/p/who-is-the-best

If you like what you read, please follow me and subscribe to The Art of Being Human on SUBSTACK

The Disease We Romanticized­—Then Forgot


There is a particular stillness in the faces of Amedeo Modigliani’s portraits. Elongated and instantly recognizable by their hollowed or pale blue eyes, with heads tilted like flowers resting on thin, swan-like necks, they now grace the walls of the world’s great museums. Many carry an unspoken fragility—a sense of life both vivid and already receding, much like their creator, who lived and died under the shadow of tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis was once so visible that its outward signs were aestheticized—what came to be known as “tubercular chic.” Today, the opposite has occurred. The disease has not disappeared, but rather receded from public awareness. Yet it remains the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent worldwide, affecting millions each year.

👉 Read the full essay on Substack:
The Disease We Romanticized—Then Forgot

If you like what you read, please follow me and subscribe to The Art of Being Human on SUBSTACK

The Question Patients Cannot Answer

Physician torn between two worlds: patient care and data


Procedural medicine is built on the premise that skills can be seen, measured, and compared. Physicians who perform procedures are trained, above all, to intervene, and their success is often defined by dexterity, decisiveness, and outcomes. It is therefore natural that patients would want to choose their doctors based on published results of technical success. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, only a handful of specialties provide robust, publicly accessible, risk-adjusted outcomes that allow meaningful comparisons across institutions, and even fewer at the level of individual physicians.

In Interventional Pulmonology, where technological advances have expanded the ability to diagnose and treat complex airway diseases, this gap remains particularly evident. Patients who require these often life-altering or life-saving procedures are left without clear guidance on how to choose their physicians. The question they most want answered; Who is the best doctor for me? is one that medicine, despite its commitment to evidence and measurements, is not yet equipped to fully address.

👉 Read the full essay on Substack: The Question Patients Cannot Answer

If you like what you read, please follow me and subscribe to The Art of Being Human on SUBSTACK

Rethinking Legacy Thinking

tree and books Rethinking Legacy Thinking


Legacy thinking is often described as a way of thinking about the future, especially when it involves leaving something behind for the next generation. Yet the same phrase can mean something quite different. Legacy thinking can also refer to the habit of staying anchored to the past. In this sense, it means hoping or presuming that habits and ideas that once worked will continue to work indefinitely.

In my experience as a physician, teacher, and writer, healthy legacy thinking transmits principles rather than habits. Principles endure even as methodologies, tools, and techniques evolve. Each new generation faces the challenge of deciding what should be preserved, what should be discarded, and what warrants adaptation.

For those interested in a contemplative examination of the subject, I explore these reflections more fully in a recent essay on Substack: https://henricolt.substack.com/p/rethinking-legacy-thinking

If you like what you read, please follow me and subscribe to The Art of Being Human on SUBSTACK

The Physician’s Journey: Transitions, Burnout, and Reinvention

physician by river calmly thinking about professional transition and reinvention


Medicine is a profession marked by transitions, though we rarely name them as such. In this Substack essay, I reflect on burnout, not as a weakness, but as a signal that change is necessary before health care professionals collapse under the burdens of accumulated years, growing responsibilities, unfriendly work environments, and shifting systems.

As medicine enters an era increasingly affected by artificial intelligence and structural transformation, the ability to transition and even reinvent oneself is even more important than before. We are reminded that while tools and roles may evolve, the moral dimensions of medical practice remain. What endures is more than technical expertise, it is the human capacity to care, with judgment, presence, and compassion.

You can read the full essay on Substack here. https://henricolt.substack.com/p/the-physicians-journey-transitions

I welcome your reflections. 

If you like what you read, please follow me and subscribe to The Art of Being Human on SUBSTACK

Anyone Can Be A Mentor

Doctor in white coat and stethoscope thinking. Two doctors in the background with a chart.


Mentorship is an essential part of professional and personal development. In medicine, it has been an especially dominate force, in part because of traditional apprentice-like training, but also because it has been a most opportune way for health care providers to learn to emulate certain behaviors and ways of thinking. It has also been a traditional vehicle for the transmission of knowledge. Authority descends from senior to junior physicians, to trainees, and students. Today, however, that alignment is less secure.

Technology puts information as well as world-class training tools and illustrated behaviors at the hands of virtually anyone almost immediately. Younger generations are often more adept at using new technologies than their senior colleagues. Traditions are questioned. Conventions demand justification based on more than experience alone. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about mentoring; about its good sides as well as its limitations and vulnerabilities, especially in an era of democratized knowledge and reversed mentoring.

For those interested in a contemplative examination of the subject, I explore these reflections more fully in a recent essay on Substack: Anyone Can Be a Mentor

If you like what you read, please follow me and subscribe to The Art of Being Human on SUBSTACK