Second Opinion Reboot

What to Look Forward to Going Forward

I haven’t written on Substack, or much anywhere else, for a while. Part of that was practical: beginning a phased retirement from surgical practice, working on other projects, and making room to just enjoy life. But part of it was intentional. I spent time sharpening how to assess medical evidence, and thinking more carefully about how that evidence is translated, distorted, and sold to the public.

What I kept encountering was the same pattern: confident advice resting on thin evidence, and very little help for people trying to understand what actually matters. Mainstream media tends to reward what is novel and provocative. Healthcare influencers often make claims that are, at best, weakly supported and, at worst, self-serving. And now we have a newer wrinkle: AI-generated deepfakes of clinicians promoting products and dispensing bad advice.

There are many smart people doing excellent work evaluating the medical literature for clinicians. There are also public-facing commentators offering generally sound advice, but their focus is often necessarily broad. I’ve only found a handful of people who take a deeper dive into medical research and present it in a way that genuinely helps non-experts think more clearly, but they take some effort to find.

That’s the space I want to occupy going forward.

This isn’t about chasing every new study, diet, screening test, or supplement making headlines. It’s about helping people recognize when evidence is strong, when it’s weak, and when uncertainty is being papered over with confidence. We’ll touch on medical history, research design, and medical literacy. We may debunk a few persistent myths. But the goal is practical: to help you navigate the noise so you can make better healthcare decisions.

I’ll start by writing here on Substack. Some of this may eventually move into audio or video, because voice can sometimes convey nuance that text cannot. I may even have to reengage with social media, which gives me some pause. The focus, however, will remain the same.

Clarity over certainty.

And if you ever see my likeness enthusiastically hawking moisturizers or supplements, rest assured: that’s a deepfake, not me.