What is the liminal md?
Medicine is a profession at the threshold. Our field and our work is being structurally redefined. This Substack is a mashup of analysis and cultural criticism focused on the forces mutating clinical work.
I try to understand what those forces do to change the way doctors think and work.
Why liminal? The word describes a state of transition. For physicians, it captures where we’re at right now. But the problem is we don’t see transition as it’s happening. We feel it but we can’t explain or place it. And when the tension is unnamed it creates problems. These may show as burnout, moral distress, or awkward workarounds.
Nothing in this letter is prescriptive and I won’t solve your problems. I won’t make you richer, but you might be entertained. Hopefully you’ll be a little smarter.
What you’ll find
My perspective on a mutating healthcare landscape
An antidote to the thick layer of mindless slop settling on the medical infosphere
More judgment than enthusiasm. No bright, shiny futures or gratuitous technofetishism
Occasional retro-medical artifacts
Screenshots of visual thinking from my notebooks. How I notice tensions in my space, and how I sort them out
Developments that signal an early trend or significnt shift
Unlike a hospital wellness program, reading Liminal MD actually may bring a sense of cosmic tranquility
Publication schedule
Liminal MD comes out weekly. Beyond that, anything could happen.
Learn by doing
The best way to understand Liminal MD is to subscribe. If you don’t like it you can back out.
Who am I?
Bryan Vartabedian is a physician, writer, recovering chief medical officer, and owner-operator of Liminal MD, a letter on medicine’s near future. He thinks about how technology reshapes the way healthcare professionals think, work, feel, and organize themselves. He is the author of Looking Out for Number Two, the international bestseller and definitive text on baby poo. He lives in The Woodlands, Texas with his wife and two Australian Doods.
