Dr. Hassaballa Chosen As One of the Top 50 Most Influential Voices in Healthcare

The real question is: will we have won the war of the human condition? — In 2009, my eldest daughter died after succumbing to complications of B-cell lymphoma. Whenever we speak or write about what happened, we frequently mention that she “lost the battle” with lymphoma. It was indeed a battle, and she endured so much pain and suffering for those six months she was…

Your ego can be dangerous if you let it cloud your judgment and make you “too cool” to ask for help. — I had known the patient well. She was just in my ICU a few weeks previous with a perforated bowel and multiple abscesses in her abdomen. She was now in the hospital emergency department several weeks later with severe acidosis (or acid levels in the blood). I was absolutely convinced…

The new Sepsis-3 definition has allowed commercial payers to deny thousands of dollars to hospitals on sepsis claims. — Among the many types of denials from insurance companies that come across my desk, one I have been seeing more frequently is the “DRG denial.” This is where an insurance company will comb through the medical record of a claim and deny a specific “diagnosis related group,” or DRG. So…

They are absolutely essential, and they can mean the difference between life and death. — It was 9:30 PM. I was alone in the ICU. The patient for which I was caring had just had heart surgery. He was getting agitated, and so I ordered a common medication to treat his agitation. Then, suddenly, he turned blue because he was struggling to breathe. “Call a…

It has been great to just “live and let live” with respect to masking in public. — Covid cases are rising across the country, across my state, and across my county. We have had a slight uptick in hospitalizations since our low back in late March, when we had zero Covid cases in the hospital. I have not had a Covid patient in my ICU for weeks…

RaDonda Vaught, the former Tennessee nurse convicted of two felonies related to a drug error, was sentenced to three years probation on May 13, 2022 (during Nurses Week, in fact). What’s more, she was granted a judicial diversion, which means that the conviction will be expunged if she completes a…

The medical logic is perfect: the patient has suffered a catastrophic brain injury, and it is unlikely that she will ever wake up again; my other patient will likely need the ventilator for many more days and will need a surgery to connect the airway to his neck, called a…

Faith allows us to connect an another, deeper level with our patients and their loved ones — I am a man of deep faith. I am not even close to the standards to which I aspire every day, and at the same time, I will die trying to be the best believer I can be. It is impossible that I leave my faith at the door of…

What makes it so fun is that all of us are doing it together — “Did you do the Wordle?” “Wait!! Don’t tell me! I haven’t done it yet!” Almost every day, these words are likely repeated all across our country, if not the world. Every day, I look forward to the next crack at guessing the five-letter word within six tries, and I look…