Would you rather have your kids get measles or autism?
That’s the choice that anti-vaccine proponent Jenny McCarthy lays out on the talk show circuit. But in a LA Times column, pediatrician Rahul Parikh comments, “At best, that’s a false choice; at worst, it’s a sick, horrible wish for her or anybody else’s child.”
He further observes, rightly, that the anti-vaccine movement has done a much better …
With the NBA playoffs now upon us, do basketball players go all out, all the time?
Not necessarily.
Over at Better Health, Nick DeNubile, orthopedic consultant to the Philadelphia 76ers, says that there’s “an important distinction between going half-speed and being tentative. If you’re tentative ““ in any sport at any time ““ that’s when you risk injury.”
The key is staying relaxed, and Dr. DeNubile notes …
When it comes to disciplinary action, Texas punishes doctors who engage in consensual sex with patients seriously.
Hospitalist Chris Rangel says they’re going overboard.
Consider the cited case, where a doctor who had consensual sex was given a harsher penalty than physicians who were negligent and actually harmed patients.
“A sexual relationship, even a consensual one, between a doctor and their patient is certainly improper,” writes Dr. …
How do you know which doctors are the ones who can appropriately comfort patients during times of suffering?
You don’t.
Anesthesiologist Dr. T talks about how medical schools don’t really screen which prospective physicians are “cavalry-ready,” or not.
“People are either ready, willing, and able to be close to human suffering – to look at a weeping man, woman, or child in the eye, talk …
Personal health records have been in the news lately, with the focus on how inaccurate they can be.
Should patients have complete access to medical records at their physician’s office or hospital?
Primary care doctor Rob Lamberts offers some thoughts on the subject. There are some parts of the record that patients shouldn’t read. “What if someone comes into the office with a child and I have …
Walgreens made some headlines with their program to give free acute care services to those who are unemployed.
Before you think that they’re doing this out of the goodness of their hearts,
Doctors rarely would drop patients who have recently gone on Medicaid, or worse, lost their health insurance altogether. Why? As Dr. Sidorov …
Patients who have trouble understanding, or acting upon, the information as it relates to their health are more than twice as likely to die.
So writes Pauline Chen in recent column, where she writes about how patients need to take a more active role understanding their health. It’s indeed a big problem, especially given the trend towards a more patient-centered orientation for medical care.
But, that …
An inspiring post supporting the use of evidence-based medicine.
Often times, what’s deemed common-sense and based on ideology is proved wrong by the evidence. And it’s up to both patients and doctors to accept the findings of studies that disproves previously accepted dogma.
Physician David Newman gives us his best Jack Nicholson impression in driving that point home: “The critical question that looms …
The following is a reader take by Susan H.
To solve the current healthcare crisis
And obviate unconscionable insurance prices
We should all get requisite medical degrees,
And minister alone,
To our own maladies.
This may present a quandary
To the Juris Doc., M.D.;
What will the legal remedy be
For a literal personal injury?
The majority of patients on Medicare have several medical issues to contend with.
For instance, according to this piece in the NY Times, “Two-thirds of people over age 65, and almost three-quarters of people over 80, have multiple chronic health conditions, and 68 percent of Medicare spending goes to people who have five or more chronic diseases.”
And, often times, these patients are seeing anywhere from five …
The zeal to rapidly implement quality measures to improve patient care has had some unintended consequences.
Bob Wachter writes about the latest episode, namely, tight control of glucose in intensive care patients.
Initial studies in 2001 showed a marked improvement in mortality when sugars were closely monitored, but since then, recent data has actually concluded the opposite.
Citing a recent NEJM study, not only were deaths, …
Football fans may want to engage in some relaxation techniques or anxiety management prior to the big game.
MedPage Today reports on a study where researchers looked at the 1980 Super Bowl, where the (then) Los Angeles Rams lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The game was “high-intensity, [where] the lead changed hands seven times. The game was played in nearby Pasadena, and the Rams had been in …
Consider that the average American reads at an eighth-grade reading level.
That’s a problem when you consider how complicated and dense the actual Patients’ Bill of Rights one typically receives at health care institutions.
There is no federal bill of rights, so the document’s complexity can vary by state. A recent study showed that almost half of the states’ bills required a level equivalent to two years …
A study showed that nearly all of recent Boston firefighting recruits were either overweight or obese.
And, of those who were classified as obese, nearly half failed the required treadmill test. Ordinarily, this probably wouldn’t make news, as it’s well documented how slovenly American society has become.
But, because firefighters do serve a public safety function, it should be noted that they “depended on one another …
Do words matter, or is it just semantics?
A recent article in the USA Today highlights a study showing that nurses, student nurses and people with no health care backgrounds all “reported a greater likeliness to forgo resuscitation if ‘allow natural death’ was used.”
Palliative care physician Christian Sinclair sheds more light on the topic, noting the ambiguity of “Allow natural death.”
“What did it …
Patients in need of a kidney often wait years for a suitable donor.
Instead of waiting, more patients are taking matters into their own hands by arranging private kidney transactions, through internet classifieds on Craigslist or social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. Those who seek organs outside the traditional system can potentially save up to ten years of waiting.
But ninety percent of the transplant centers in …
Lost in the zeal of those supporting electronic medical records is how computers can depersonalize the patient encounter.
In a nice op-ed in The New York Times, pediatrician Anne Armstrong-Coben talks about how doctors now have to make a concerted effort to look up from a computer screen simply to maintain eye contact with a patient. “I advise teenagers to limit computer time,” she writes, “as I …
A recent study on hospice care has been making mainstream media headlines, and, of course, doctors are cast in a negative light.
The study, from the Archives of Internal Medicine, concluded that patients felt abandoned by their primary care doctors upon transfer to hospice care, and that the “feelings of abandonment resulted from lack of closure for patients and families.”
Palliative care physician Christian Sinclair gives …
Patients don’t choose the days they get sick.
There are several studies, specifically dealing with heart attacks, showing that the mortality rate increases when a patient visits the hospital during the weekend.
It appears that the same goes for upper GI bleeding. MedPage Today discusses a recent study showing that “patients with nonvariceal upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage had a 22% increased mortality risk on weekends, and those …
That’s exactly what’s happening in this case in San Francisco.
Angered by a billing dispute with his chiropractor, a patient posted a negative review on the online review site, Yelp. Now he has to defend his review in court, which is, even if the case is thrown out, not a chance many patients are willing to take.
Indeed, if the medical profession really wants to shut …
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