Dr. Alden Harken's Grand Rounds Address at the Mayo Clinic

September 15, 2007

From David R. Farley, M.D. to GrandRoundsIdol

Presenter: Dr. Alden Harken Chairman of East Bay, Oakland, CA
Type of Surgeon: Cardiothoracic
Topic: "Anybody can treat Cardiac Arrhythmias"
Location: Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
Date: September 15, 2007
Reviewer: David R. Farley, MD, FACS

Importance of Topic: 8 out of 10
Speaking ability: 8 out of 10
Wit & Personality: 10 out of 10
Overall Score: 9 out of 10

Dr. Alden Harken is a master educator. Talented, experienced, and comfortable as a speaker, he morphs his presentations from oral board intensity to recollections as a medical student to acid-base analysis of blood to intraoperative decision-making. His presentation on treating cardiac arrhythmias lasted 45 minutes. His remarks were a delight to both the green, young medical studentsand to the sagest of gray-hairs in our audience.

Mostly geared to surgical trainees, I was impressed. He knows the data. He lived the trials and tribulations to advance the science. And he is humble enough to pick on himself, and the audience, along the way.

His slightly manic delivery is refreshing and his flighty stops and starts through the talk exposed his passion for his subject and his interest in teaching the topic.

I highly recommend Dr. Harken as a Visiting Professor.

He may be a Cardiothoracic surgeon, but his CV, his passion, and his presentation reach far beyond a subspecialty.

This guy is a surgeon, and he teaches the entire gamut.

David R. Farley
Mayo Clinic

* * * * *

Presentation: "The Current Economics of Healthcare and How it is Killing Our Profession"
Speaker: Dr. David Cossman
Date: May 17, 2007
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Reviewer: Leo A. Gordon, MD, FACS

Rating: 9/10

Dr. Cossman’s address to the Bay Surgical Society expanded on the wildly popular series of editorials he has written for General Surgery News [www.GeneralSurgerynews.com]. With wit and insight, he analyzed the economic effects of the HMO, executive corporate healthcare compensation packages, current healthcare legislation and the transformation of the surgical patient from an ill person seeking medical care to an economic chit on a corporate gameboard.

Using a pointed on-message staccato delivery, Cossman described the HMO as an economic parasite who uses the infra-structure and good-will of well-meaning physicians to perpetrate a colossal economic fraud. He applied free-market economic principles to our profession, balancing obscene executive compensation packages against declining remuneration for hard-working principled physicians who never read the contracts they were signing.

During his remarks, Cossman expanded his view of medicine by drawing analogies to other areas of American culture that have undergone a perverse transformation from viable and effective entities to impotent vestiges of bygone days. He focused on the decline of the public school system and the current perversion of the American workplace as it becomes both an incubator for frivolous lawsuits and an extension of government social services. Medicine, according to Cossman, is next in line.

This was not your usual after-dinner medical speech. It was a rousing analysis of the current state of our profession ending with a call-to-arms to save it.

Cossman’s style is direct and entertaining. His message is not clouded with the graph or the table. Rather it is punctuated by passion and a love of the discipline of medicine.

Any group or institution who wants a clear picture of the economics of today’s healthcare should contact Dr. Cossman.

Get in line!