Lifestyle

A reader's credit-card issuer changed the terms of his cash-back rewards card program, and the doctor's looking for a better alternative. Which cards offer the most-generous cash-back rewards? Here are two of the best deals our experts have found.

If your weekend plans include watching the world's top 3-year-olds make "The Run for the Roses" in the 137th Kentucky Derby, you'll need to stock up on essential supplies, including a world-class bourbon. A bourbon enthusiast recommends these five brands.

Clinical medicine is becoming increasingly left-brained, organized by evidence-based medicine and guidelines. Any right-brained activities we might engage in are relegated to just a few moments of our day. How then do we then satisfy our natural human craving for creativity in our work?

Physician groups converged on Capitol Hill this week to weigh in on solutions to the untenable Medicare physician payment formula. Representatives from the groups and several lawmakers called for the repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate.

Sell in May and go away? Seems so -- stocks are off to a weak start this month, and some investment analysts are saying a pullback is due following April's strong rally. What's an investor to do? When the going gets tough, the tough buy consumer staples stocks.

There are myriad problems besetting medicine that affect outcomes, medical and financial. One of the inherent ones is that many of these problems have intertwining relationships, making it that much harder to parse out for analysis and improvement. Let's look at a few, keeping in mind our blood pressure.

The little island of Molokai is not the Hawaii of glitz and glamor -- and that is the way the locals like it. The island is worth a visit because it is one of the few places left where you can still see what life was like in Old Hawaii.

Lawmakers in New York are proposing to ban physicians and other healthcare professionals from wearing neckties, white coats, jewelry, and other items to help prevent the spread of infection.

The iPhone is the smartphone physicians choose over all other smartphones, according to a new survey. In fact, 75% of physicians polled said they owned at least one Apple device, such as an iPhone, iPad or iPod.

Leaving private practice to become a hospital employee can be a good fit for many physicians, but it's not a wise move for everyone. Physicians need to fairly assess the costs and benefits of giving up private practice for hospital employment.

As a formerly idealistic pediatrician whose eventual disappointment in clinical practice led to her leave medicine altogether, Maggie Kozel, MD, has put into words what I felt about being a practicing physician and have been unable to express adequately. I invite you to listen to my interview with Dr. Kozel, where we explore what life is like after medicine.

Estate planning can be tricky in this volatile political and economic environment, but one thing is almost certain: In December 2012, the current $5 million federal gift-tax exemption for individuals will likely be reduced to $1 million or even less. Failing to take advantage of this short-lived tax break could impact your relatives substantially.

The elimination of Osama bin Laden deals a major psychological blow to al Qaeda and removes a major global terrorism threat, which experts believe will be a net positive for the U.S. financial markets.

Retailers and hotel chains have long employed "mystery shoppers" to gauge how well their customers are treated. Now regulators want to take the same approach to determine whether access is a problem for new patients seeking out primary care physicians.

As a physician, how do you know whether your staff is as productive as they can be? The answer is, you don't -- at least not in the sense that some magic red light comes on when productivity levels drop. But there are electronic tools and procedures that can be put in place to help physicians determine whether employees are meeting their goals and objectives.

Newport Beach, Calif., is as wealthy and aristocratic as its namesake, Newport, R.I., and as entertaining and homespun as what used to be Coney Island, N.Y. You get both here: The people who have it all and love it, and others who have so little and may well be more content.

A young physician with $175,000 in education loans and credit-card debt doesn't know how to begin paying it all down, let alone how to start saving for the future. She can get on the road to financial security by following these steps.

Medical training could serve its patients better by developing a more cost-effective model -- more physician extenders to do triage, prevention and simple problem-solving, instead of more time-consuming and expensive training required for a smaller number primary care docs. We could also do a better job of it in larger, centrally planned groups, using salaried extenders and niche specialists working together. What do you think?

No one is smart enough to call the top of the market in silver, but now is the time for precious metals investors take a breath and think about protecting profits gained from the metal's recent meteoric rise. Here's how.

A landmark study, and numerous subsequent studies, of pension funds found that timing the stock market and selecting individual stocks contributed very little to portfolio performance. Instead, asset allocation accounted for more than 90% of a fund's performance over time. So why are you still trying to game the market?

As physician business or medical practice owners, we are equally likely to go from youthful idealists starting out in practice, or our newly discovered nonclinical business, to blasé and even somewhat jaded practitioners of our crafts. By approaching our work instead with the Zen Buddhist concept of a "beginner's mind," it instantly reveals a marvelous perspective with which to step back and re-evaluate our businesses, and even our lives. Here's how.

Few physicians receive any advice on asset-protection planning from their certified public accountants, and unfortunately when they do the advice is often wrong. Here are four common mistakes CPAs typically make when advising doctors about protecting their assets.

The University of Houston at Clear Lake's relatively low tuition and flexible Master of Health Services Administration program was ranked first in this year's "Top Business Graduate Schools for Physician-Executives." Here's a list of the Top 10.

New federal rules may make getting "bumped" by your airline more profitable. Travelers who are asked to take another flight due to airline overbooking may receive up to $1,330 in compensation, compared to just $800 under the old rules.

The impact of today's sluggish economy has been widespread. Virtually every avenue of the financial world has been affected, including the way physicians need to plan for and build a retirement nest egg. The days of buy-and-hold investing are over, experts say. Now more than ever physicians need to be more proactive in their management of retirement assets.

In the interest of transparency and accountability, two things this world is very short on, here are some follow-ups on previous columns and ruminations. Was I right, wrong, incomplete, or just wandering in the fog? Like everything in life, it's probably a mélange of all of the above, so let's see.

Summer vacation season is only weeks away, bringing with it thoughts of sun, sand and relaxing at the beach. If you're still undecided about your holiday destination, TripAdvisor's ranking of "Best Beaches of 2011" offers some suggestions. Here are the Top 5.

The number of physicians receiving compensation for being on-call is increasing, with invasive cardiologists earning the highest median daily rate of on-call compensation at $1,600 per day, according to a new study.