On Rock Bands, Plane Crashes, SWAT Teams and Codes

JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP I’ve had the great pleasure of seeing Bruce Spingsteen and the E Street Band perform live a number of times since the mid-70s. Yes, I started being a “groupie” while still in diapers (no, not Depends). What amazes me still is the obvious teamwork among band members and crew. Bruce can change an introduction, set list, or song on the fly by simply looking a certain way at Roy …

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Sister Morphine

JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP The hard core rockers amongst us know that Sister Morphine was written and recorded by Marianne Faithful while she was dating Mick Jagger during the time he and the Stones were recording Let it Bleed in 1969. Marianne’s version tanked early, but the song was later covered by the Stone and received more acclaim. Parenthetically, she did not receive credit until the Stones’ 1998 No Security album. The song …

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It’s You

JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP Maybe you read my columns in the two previous issues of JUCM and had a brief moment of self-awareness. Maybe one of your co-workers put them in your mailbox. Did you actually ask your co-workers and subordinates if you were the “cancer” I was talking about? They are not going to be honest. They care little about you and fear for their jobs, and so, are hardly going to …

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Curing ‘Cancer’

JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP So you missed the “cancer.” Maybe you still don’t even know you missed it. At this point the patient (your business) is dying and you plod along unaware of the impending doom, like a smoker with a chronic cough. Your business is losing weight, its cheeks are sunken, skin sallow, as it grows weaker each passing month. One day soon it will start coughing up blood, and then it …

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Missing a ‘Cancer’

JOHN SHUFELDT, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP My worst fear: I miss a cancer. Of all things to miss, I worry about this the most. Miss a myocardial infarction, stroke, or appendicitis and you figure it out quickly because it smacks you right in the face. Conversely, cancer simmers along. A few months or even years go by and everything seems fine, then all hell breaks loose. The symptoms reach epic – if not life-threatening – …

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