It's true. Factors other than our patients influence the care physicians provide. In the case of American orthopedic surgery, as I write for The Atlantic, Factor X is the medical device industry.

Today, most orthopedic surgeons train one or two more years extra (that's after eight years...

I was reading my phone during the advertisements in a Memphis theater July 4th when I heard the catchy line, "Chill, Don't Kill." Could it be? Really? Now we need ads cajoling us not to murder one another? I turned to my wife and she confirmed it. Yes, we had...

My reporting for Monday's Los Angeles Times includes the statistic, derived from one study, that a solid majority of healthy people over age 60 have scoliosis of the spine. In the patient population I commonly see in St. Louis, at the university where Larry Lenke and Keith...