From Tokyo, I flew on to Singapore, where I had the honor of being visiting professor at the massive (1500-bed) Singapore General Hospital, a guest of Dr. Kheng Hock Lee. Kheng Hock, one of Singapore’s leading family physicians, has been charged with developing Singapore’s hospitalist program. Having last been to Singapore 20 years ago, many ...

A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to visit Tokyo and Singapore – the former to speak at a conference on “Training of the Generalist Physician,” and the latter as visiting professor at Singapore General Hospital. Today: some observations on the medical scene in Japan; tomorrow, the same viz Singapore. The Tokyo conference was the brainchild ...

Until now, medical tourism has been a curiosity, an iconic “Wow, Look How Flat the World Is Becoming,” fodder for stories on 60 Minutes. But as health insurers and employers get into the act, get ready for some Battles Royale. Of course, it was only a matter of time. With surgeries costing tens of thousands of dollars less in India and Thailand ...

When I was a med student, the Beating Heart of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) was not the CEO’s suite, the neurosurgeon’s OR, or the Dean’s lair. It was the seat of one Wallace Miller, Sr., in the decidedly unglamorous Chest Reading Room.Do you even know where the chest reading room of your radiology department is?Everybody – ...

Stuff this week that caught my eye: Does medical tourism harm the natives? Are all those CT scans destroying more than our budgets? Are nocturnalists at risk for more than decubs? Will Medicare need to cut hospital payments to fuel P4P? Answers: yes, yes, probably, and duh.Yesterday, NPR’s All Things Considered described the dark side of medical ...