Marc Ringel, MD - Blog

Video: Mzee* Marc in Maasai Country

February 10, 2025

Placebo: The Power of the Mind (Chicago Life Version)

Medical science can take credit for innumerable amazing advances in managing and curing a wide range of human afflictions. But science accounts for only a part of healing. There’s a whole toolkit of other things that can make people better, one of which is the placebo.

January 15, 2025

Bird Flu (Chicago Life Version)

Bird influenza does not pose a big risk to humans today. But keep an eye on it.

November 16, 2024

Sensitive or Specific? (Chicago Life Version)

Marc’s trip to Kenya this winter had a huge impact on him. “Mzee,” the piece published in this issue of Chicago Life, touches on one bit of it. The copy went to press before Marc had back surgery, yet another procedure made possible by his status as a privileged American. He is still recovering but expects one day before too long to do the equivalent of the hike down to the Ewaso Ng'iro River and back. He just doesn’t know where yet.

September 23, 2024

Digital Healing Book

Death: What a Great Opportunity!

Facing the fact that we’re going to die is one of the biggest challenges of living. I learned as a hospice doctor that the end of life can be filled with meaning and peace, for the person dying and for their loved ones. Here are some ideas about making it so.

August 2, 2024

Mzee Privilege (Chicago Life Version)

June 15, 2024

Travel

Kenya (and a little London) Diary

I visited Kenya in January and February of 2024, staying in London for a couple of days on the way there. When the travel agent asked me what kind of trip I desired I told her I wanted to get to know Kenya and its people as well as I could in the three weeks or so I would be there. As you’ll see in the travel journal I wrote and the pictures I took, the resulting trip more than met my expectations. It was richer than words or pictures can describe. Nevertheless, here’s an attempt to share my experience.

April 6, 2024

Band-Aid Solutions: Being Sensible About Physiologic Monitoring (Chicago Life Version)

In medicine, as in everything else, it is not always better to have more data, particularly when you don’t know what to do with it. The reams of data being generated today by personal physiologic monitors may raise our anxiety level without contributing to our health.

March 23, 2024

April 2024 Article Reviews

It’s been two years since I’ve published reviews of healthcare IT articles, not that there haven’t been tons of interesting factoids, studies, and commentaries out there. My file currently contains 253 pieces awaiting my comment. I’ve held off adding mine to the cacophony of voices because, well, there are so many already vying for your attention. However, I’ve recently come across a couple of articles that I believe shout to be heard. They deserve a bit of your valuable attention because each delivers a provocative meta-perspective on where we’re at.

March 11, 2024

Digital Healing Book

Digital Respiratory Healthcare: Leave No Community Behind: The Digital Divide

Marc Ringel co-wrote a chapter in Digital Respiratory Healthcare, a book published in 2023 by the European Respiratory Society. The chapter, "Leave no Community Behind,” is about engaging community members in planning and implementing respiratory healthcare services. Marc’s contribution drew on his experience working as a physician researcher with community groups in rural Colorado.

December 29, 2023

Fritzi Engelstein Changed My Life (Chicago Life Version)

The free clinic movement, including Fritzi Engelstein Free People’s Health Center in Chicago, where Marc volunteered as a medical student, changed some lives, especially of the people who worked there. Thank you to Mary Driscoll, who supplied some history as well as the image. And one random thing to note in the online version, the article on the facing page is by Marc’s first cousin, Cory Franklin.

December 15, 2023

Pain (Chicago Life Version)

There is plenty of blame to go around for the horrible narcotic epidemic afflicting America today. Dr. Ringel discusses how, as a frontline doctor, he came to contribute to the problem.

October 10, 2023

Intelligence in Healthcare: Artificial and Not (Chicago Life Version)

Whether artificial intelligence makes something better or worse depends, as it does for any tool, on how it’s used. The potential for intelligently deployed AI to improve health is enormous. But it is not about to replace human beings.

July 15, 2023

How to Improve Medical Practice (Chicago Life Version)

This piece, How to Improve Medical Practice (Hint: It's not with Lectures), appeared on page 30 of the Spring 2023 issue of Chicago Life Magazine. Well-educated doctors are absolutely critical but not nearly sufficient to achieve excellent patient care. It takes an empowered team, supported by carefully designed, smoothly functioning systems, to consistently deliver the best medicine has to offer.

May 15, 2023

Fleas and Blades: All Doctors are Not Alike (Chicago Life Version)

This piece, Fleas and Blades: All Doctors are Not Alike, appeared on page 28 of the Winter 2023 issue of Chicago Life Magazine. Some doctors, including surgeons (blades), are interventionists, i.e. they specialize in doing procedures. Their approach, even to the same medical problem, may be very different from that of a family physician, pediatrician or internist (flea). In pursuing your own healthcare it helps to know whether the physician you’re consulting is a flea or a blade. We need them both.

March 4, 2023

You are More than Data (Chicago Life Version)

This piece, You are More than Data, appeared on page 16 of the Winter 2022 issue of Chicago Life Magazine. The electronic medical record (EMR) is a very powerful tool, which doesn’t necessarily mean it makes healthcare better. Like any tool, from a hammer to a laser, how an EMR is employed is critical to what it accomplishes. Too often EMR technology presents a barrier rather than a channel between patient and health professional, thereby compromising quality of care for patients and satisfaction for everybody. The whole process of electronic medical record development needs to be refocused on meeting the real needs of people on both sides of healthcare’s frontlines.

December 18, 2022

Medicine

Oct 14 - Keynote Presentation

On October 14, I’ll be doing a keynote address at The Patient and The Practitioner in the Age of Technology: Promoting Healing Relationships, a medical conference at Brown University in Providence, RI. The title of my talk is "Story and Data: Embracing the Past and Creating the Future.”

October 14, 2022

Looking Back while Looking Foward (Chicago Life Version)

This piece, Looking Back while Looking Forward, appeared on page 41 of the Fall 2022 issue of Chicago Life Magazine.

September 28, 2022

Video: Mzee* Marc in Maasai Country

February 10, 2025

Common Questions and Concerns about the Covid-19 Vaccine

How does it work? ‍Is it safe? ‍Why is it so important? To answer these questions CAHEC presents a short video.

February 23, 2021

Telemedicine and COVID-19

Telemedicine, the pandemic and the barriers in-between.

April 15, 2020

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December 2020 Article Reviews

Reviews of 2020 articles published for loyal readers.

December 30, 2020

Technology and Medicine

An overview on technological advancements in the medical field.

May 5, 2020

Consumer-Driven Telemedicine

These days it’s healthcare administrators, much more than doctors, who decide what is to be done in healthcare.

December 23, 2019