Personal essays · Amritsar → Fresno · 1994–2026
Where knowledge lives.
In one physician’s lifetime, the medical record moved from his mind to a paper chart, to a fragmented database, to an integrated system, and now to software that reads it and acts. These essays ask what that did to the patient, the doctor, and the truth between them.
Five rooms the record has lived in
Scroll sideways →- 1994
Amritsar · Khalsa CollegeThe physician’s mindWhatever you did not memorize tonight would not be available tomorrow. Cognition and responsibility were joined in one person.
- 2002
Amritsar · Sri Guru Ram Das InstituteThe paper chartIts failures were honest. You knew when you did not have the chart. A visible gap makes you cautious.
- 2008
Little Rock · UAMSThe fragmented EMRSystems layered on systems. A physician needed to know not only medicine but where each fact lived.
- 2011
Fresno · the integrated EHRThe record became the roomPowerful enough that medicine reorganized around it. The price of the bargain was attention.
- 2026
California · nowSystems that read and actGenerative AI answers. Agentic AI acts. Does information ever become understanding?
The Primary Care Office After the EHR
From a village in Punjab to Epic and artificial intelligence: what thirty years in medicine have taught one physician about the next thirty.
ਜੇ ਸਉ ਚੰਦਾ ਉਗਵਹਿ ਸੂਰਜ ਚੜਹਿ ਹਜਾਰ ॥
ਏਤੇ ਚਾਨਣ ਹੋਦਿਆਂ ਗੁਰ ਬਿਨੁ ਘੋਰ ਅੰਧਾਰ ॥
If a hundred moons were to rise, and a thousand suns appeared, even with all that light, without the Guru there would still be darkness.
Newest
All essays →Ways in
All series →Roots
Khadur Sahib, the Majha, and Amritsar before the internet.
Explore →79Becoming a Doctor
Khalsa College to the last day of residency.
1 published · Explore →28The Examination Room
Craft and attention: what a visit is really made of.
Explore →30The Machine That Reads
Living through the arrival of AI in the clinic.
Explore →12Notebook
Notes and fragments, three hundred to eight hundred words.
Explore →25The Human Pulse
What everyone feels in a doctor’s office.
Explore →239 essays in fifteen sections.
From a town of succession in the Majha to an examination room in California: one physician’s life, written a piece at a time. Two published so far; a new essay every two to three weeks.
Browse the catalogueKhadur Sahib · Amritsar · Spring Dale · Khalsa College
Four short pieces in the memoir register on where the writing comes from.
Visit the four places →Fidelity · Equality · Embodiment
ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ the faithful record · ਲੰਗਰ equal reach · ਅਖਾੜਾ the embodied patient — and Ang 463: light is not understanding.
How the series is built →New essays by email
Memoir and reflection, one essay at a time. The list is kept at kpsgill.com; this site has no tracking.