Eric Potts

AANS/CNS Spine Section Verified account @spinesection · Jun 6, 2025

Joint Spine Section Emerging Investigator Program – Call for Nominations

We are now accepting applications for the Joint Spine Section Emerging Investigator Program, a prestigious two-year national mentoring initiative designed to foster the next generation of neurosurgical spine investigators.
Participants will receive personalized mentorship from senior spine investigators at major conferences, including the American Academy of Neurological Surgery Annual Meeting, the AANS/CNS Joint Spine Section Meeting, and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. This structured guidance helps participants become competitive for federal research funding and develop strong clinical trial expertise aligned with their research interests.

Eligibility: Chief residents, fellows, and junior faculty within five years of their initial faculty appointment.

Application Deadline: July 1, 2025

To apply, please submit your CV and research proposal to Brigette Bahmani at b.bahmani@wustl.edu. For any questions or additional information, please contact Brigette at the same email address.

Participant Perspective: Dr. Tej D. Azad
“Spine surgeons can, and should, be surgeon-scientists. The Joint Spine Section Emerging Investigator Program has provided me with mentorship, guidance, and resources to prepare for a career as an independent investigator.”

Since his selection into the Emerging Investigator Program, Dr. Azad has:
- Published a first-author paper in Journal of Clinical Investigation describing a multi-analyte blood test for acute spinal cord injury.
- Been selected as the 2024 Academy Award winner by the American Academy of Neurological Surgery.
- Received the J.A.N.E. award at the 2025 Spine Summit.
- Secured a $140K 21st Century Grant from CSRS to advance research into a blood test for cervical myelopathy.

@NREFORG @AANSNeurosurg @AANSNeuro @CNSResidents

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Dutch Rojas Verified account @DutchRojas · May 26, 2025

You’ve mistaken bureaucracy for benevolence and cartel consolidation for care.

Let’s forget the disaster post by your friend Max. I think we have all had enough of that debacle. Let’s just get your points.

1/ You assert private insurance companies “cost more” and “provide less care.” True enough, but only partially.

You omit that they operate within a system shaped, distorted, and reinforced by public policy: tax exclusion of employer-sponsored insurance, CMS-driven fee schedules, and anti-competitive Certificate of Need laws.

The private market has never truly existed in American healthcare. What we have is a state-sanctioned oligopoly, not capitalism.

2/ You invoke UnitedHealthcare as an example of failure, rightly, but neglect to mention its most powerful allies: nonprofit health systems, especially those like @UCLAHealth .

These institutions:

•Receive 3–5x higher Medicare reimbursements than independent practices,

•Pay no federal, state, or property taxes,
Issue tax-exempt municipal bonds,

•Collect tax-deductible donations,

• Dolinate regional markets like robber barons with clerical collars.

United is the villain and the nonprofit health systems are its bishops.

3/ Your call to abolish private insurance entirely rests on a romanticized faith in Medicare. But Medicare is the engine of price distortion:

•It undervalues primary care while overpaying large systems through facility fees.

•It entrenches administrative overhead via MACs and billing codes.
It also created the very Relative Value Scale, which deforms clinical incentives.

To suggest Medicare for All would resolve these issues is to propose the arsonist as fire chief.

4/ On workforce imbalance: you lament our surplus of specialists and shortage of PCPs. Fair critique. But again, who designed the pipeline? The federal government, comprised of Marxist bureaucrats, subsidizes academic centers to train specialists, funds residency slots through Medicare and allows hospitals to capture GME dollars without accountability.

The solution isn’t central planning of physician labor.

It’s exposing the actual cost, value, and demand for services via transparent pricing, something neither public nor private monopolies permit.

5/ You cite Amdahl’s Law to argue that physician salaries are a rounding error. True. But this only strengthens the counterargument: The problem is not the physicians, it’s the system.

A system that:

•Obscures price
•Rewards consolidation
•Penalizes independence
•And spins regulatory complexity into profit

Until that changes, your dream of government controlled, top-down equity , run by non profit health systems will produce the same result as all prior attempts: a bureaucratized empire of mediocrity.

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Anthony DiGiorgio, DO, MHA Verified account @DrDiGiorgio · May 27, 2025

Have you heard?

One primary care doctor can cover 5x the trauma call of a neurosurgeon. Can do 5x the thrombectomies of a neurointerventionalist. Can do 5x the whipples…

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Natalie morgan @SpineNeuro · May 13, 2025

Let’s just focus on everything but the red part of the circle 🤨

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Neurosurgery Podcast Verified account @NSGYPodcast · May 5, 2025

Ever notice how doctors don't *own* hospitals? We work in them, we manage them, we make them possible - but we can't *own* them, here in the USA.

Ever wonder why?

In this conversation with the tremendous @eapotts, we explore some of the story behind the ban on physician-owned hospital, current regulations, and the reality of life, business, and patient-care at a hospital owned and operated by the physicians.

Spoiler: it's pretty great. Patients love it, doctors love it, staff love it, and the outcomes are stellar.

Thank you to returning champion @DrDiGiorgio for insights on policy and politics surrounding physician-owned hospitals.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/phy…

open.spotify.com/episode/6AU4ux…

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