ZDog MD calls Dr. Oz "One quack to rule them all". Awaits lawsuit.

ZDog MD rolls it out at Zappos.

From the article on Time:

Damania makes the videos with two pals from medical school; he’s also made some with his father, who is a retired primary care physician. And he doesn’t just take on public health messages. He recently targeted home-birthers, posting a Someecard captioned: “Sure, Sally, home is a perfectly safe, comfortable  and acceptable place to give birth. If your home is a hospital.” To critics who support home births, he says: “Sorry hippies! Just keeping it real.” He tackles probably the most revered social-media/pop culture doc of our time, Dr. Oz, dubbing him “one quack to fool them all.” And he pokes fun at pharma, with another Someecard that reads, “Today I’m going to find a drug rep and give them a pen with MY name on it.”

Far from alienating doctors who push out more conventional messages via social media, Damania has cultivated them as fans. Dr. Kevin Pho, an internist north of Boston who has collected more than 65,000 followers on Twitter, takes a more strait-laced approach to connecting with patients. But Pho, who describes himself as “social media’s leading physician voice,” acknowledges that some people respond better to off-the-cuff, even raunchy, perspectives...

ZDoggMD Les Misérables

Lovers of medical musicals rejoice! We're finally turning our talents to music outside of rap.

Click to read more ...

ZDoggMD Live Standup: Doctor Comedy

Get your ER comedy fix.

Standup medical comedy from the Mel Herbert’s Essentials of Emergency Medicine 2011. Lame and offensive…well, you really haven’t seen nothin’ yet.

Part 1

Part 2

For All Of The Doctors On Call Over Christmas

A tribute to healthcare peeps working over the hollidays; Feed The Wards (Do They Know It's Christmas Time?)

There comes a time... when we heed a certain call... when the world must come together as one.

This is NOT one of those times.

But it is the Holidays, so we should probably take a moment to think of those less fortunate than ourselves. People who go hungry while others feast. People without a single shred of hope remaining. I’m talking about healthcare workers taking call during the Holidays.

It’s not enough to give lip service to their sacrifice. That’s why Dr. Harry challenged me to put my mouth where my mouth is and DO SOMETHING this year.

Hence the genesis of a grand telethon to benefit these poor needy souls. The main draw: a collection of pop music’s finest stars, gathered together as Band-Aged to belt out a stirring tribute to the selfless heroes of medicine. Sure, the pop stars all look vaguely like me. And sure, British amalgamation Band-Aid did something vaguely reminiscent in the 80′s. But everyone knows that no one speaks British anymore. It’s time for a remake. It’s time to feed the wards...

Interview: Zubin Damania MD aka ZDoggMD

Interview with hard-rhymin rapper and hospitalist Zubin Damania MD (ZDogg MD) Slightly funnier than pacebo.

Did you ever wonder what kind of doctor you were going to be when you grew up? A hard-rapping stand up comic hospitalist with a penchant for drafting lyrics like, "I remembered she's demented with a nasty case of C.diff", and "I got one glove like Michael Jackson, but it's made of latex and it's your prostate I'm waxin'!" or calling Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz 'Sucker MDs' might not be it.

But that's exactly what Zubin Damania MD does, and it's worked.

Zubin started out as a mullet-wearing, Costco card carrying rockabilly and ended up (so far) working as a hospitalist at Stanford and making video satire with his pediatrician buddy Dr. Harry on ZDoggMD.com (winner of the MedGadget Best New Weblog of 2010) as well as writing for Freelance MD. You can read all of Zubin's posts on Freelance MD here.

In this interview, Zubin discusses where he started and puts his current practice as well as his passion for combining entertainment and patient education in clear perspective.

ZDogg MD Video: Doctors Today

Interview with ZDoggMD

Part 1: Where did you come from?

In this video: oranges, UC Berkeley, UCSF, Stanford, Costco, physician parents, residency, Gastroenterology, feculent smelling burp juice, working for someone else, hospitalist, comedy, UCSF graduation speech, slightly funnier than placebo, youtube.

Part 2: Why are you doing what you're doing?

In this video: passion, entrepreneurship, opportunity, preventing ulcer disease, safe sex, physician burnout, testicular self exam, megalomania.

Part 3: What advice would you give to medstudents?

In this video: medical school advice, who you are, niches in medicine, pressure, jerks and homeless patients, kids, purpose and passion, picking a specialty, residency, real doctors, friends and rectums, vasovagal party jokes.

Part 4: What mistakes have you made and learned from?

In this video: Mistakes, lifeinthefastlane.com, Mike Cadogan, wasting time, making money, cynicism, jerks, doctors and credibility, Osamacare, targeting your audience, standup comedy, hearing aids and dying onstage.

Techcrunch Interview (includes Hemorrhoid rap!)

In this video from Techcrunch Rhymes and Medicine: Hemorrhoid rap, Snoop Dog, Tony Hsieh, Zappos, Delivering Happiness, educating, Youtube, unprofessional behavior, a human face on medicine, internet patients and Google, medical technology, iPad, medicines culture of unhappiness.

Like this interview with ZDoggMD? Leave your thoughs in the comments below.

Click to read more ...

A Lighter Look at Coaching Med Students on Choosing a Specialty

These doctors are funny!

I just came across Freelance MD's new sister site dedicated to med students (Uncommon Student MD) and in curiosity clicked on this video. To all our physicians out there, I DARE you to try not to laugh.

And I see that one of these intrepid beat boxers is now part of FreelanceMD's author group - fantastic!  It's great to see people who teach us all not to take ourselves too seriously. Enjoy!

The Medtrix

What is The Medtrix? It is the medical career that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth: that you are a slave.

Look, I've come to terms with the fact that I'm a massive nerd. I can only parse the world through the lens of science fiction movies I've seen. Don't laugh now—it's a real condition with its own ICD-9 code: 003.14, Dorkiness NOS. The typical signs and symptoms include choosing Internal Medicine as a career, owning 20-sided dice, and receiving unexpected wedgies at cocktail parties from orthopods named Chip.

But after working as a full-time clinical hospitalist for almost 9 years now, I'm starting to appreciate some eerie parallels to the sci-fi classic The Matrix. Although I admit I have yet to see a single doctor at the hospital wearing a skin-tight leather bodysuit. Scrub-chaps, maybe, but no leather. Wait, where was I?

Oh yeah. For many of us practicing clinical medicine, the world can sometimes take on an unreal, dreamlike quality. Like we're going through the motions of someone else's life.

Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream?

For the majority of my clinical career, I've had this nagging feeling. I'm suspecting many in medicine today may have felt similarly: that the REAL world is out there, and we're trudging through someone else's construct instead. The key question we have to ask ourselves is less HOW to escape the Medtrix, but WHETHER to escape.

You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.

Take the blue pill, continue along your current path. Take the red pill, and see what fascinating opportunities await you outside of, or in addition to, the confines of clinical medicine. One thing though: avoid the brown pill. Trust me on this.

Over the next few weeks and months I'd like to drag you through my own journey from pure clinician to…well, like any good sci-fi series you'll have to stay tuned to see what happens! Hang tight and together we'll see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind. Welcome to the real world.

"Whoa."