KevinMD.com

September 14, 2011Sep 14, 20114

Social connectivity to engage patients has real the potential to impact health through improvements in lifestyle, the main driver of wellness. This is in increasingly shorter supply as we collectively increase pounds, cholesterol, and blood pressure readings. Many have written…

Many have written compellingly on why social matters for health. The best I’ve seen are a post by Jay Parkinson (of Hello Health and Fast Company fame) that borrows from Atul …

Patient voices

How to talk to teens about tanning beds

Dennis Hughes, MD, PhD

September 14, 2011Sep 14, 2011

You’ve had the sex talk, the smoking talk, and the drugs and drinking talk. But have you talked to your kids about tanning beds? You should. Tanning bed use can cause skin cancer, including the deadliest form, melanoma. And, using…

You’ve had the sex talk, the smoking talk, and the drugs and drinking talk. But have you talked to your kids about tanning beds?

You should. Tanning bed use can cause skin cancer, including the deadliest form, melanoma. And, using tanning beds before age 30 increases a person’s risk of melanoma by 75%.

Equally worrisome: tanning beds can become addictive. A recent study showed that 80% of college-age tanning beds users couldn’t kick the habit.

This …

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How to talk to teens about tanning beds

Conditions and diseases

Andrea Mitchell breast cancer thoughts

Gary Schwitzer

September 14, 2011Sep 14, 20117

For the past 24 hours I've squirmed about whether to or how to criticize NBC's Andrea Mitchell about her on-air announcement of her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. How can you criticize someone who is dealing with what she -…

For the past 24 hours I’ve squirmed about whether to or how to criticize NBC’s Andrea Mitchell about her on-air announcement of her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. How can you criticize someone who is dealing with what she – and so many other women – are dealing with? But it’s now clear that some breast cancer survivors and others who know the science are critical of the message …

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Andrea Mitchell breast cancer thoughts

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Patient voices

Care costs a lot and it’s not straightforward what the cost is

Samuel Yang

September 14, 2011Sep 14, 20116

Up until last May, my experience of medical costs was limited to the $100 per month premium I contributed towards my employer-sponsored insurance and the nominal co-pays associated with well-child checkups and generic prescriptions. There was never any hesitation in…

I blindly signed up for the school-recommended family insurance and naïvely assumed myself, my …

Health policy

Targeting physician salaries is a poor strategy for health care costs

Kevin Pho, MD

September 14, 2011Sep 14, 201112

A recent study from Health Affairs took aim at physician salaries. Well, not exactly their salaries, but fees. It's a subtle difference, but that nuance is lost in the mainstream media narrative. According to the study, "American primary care and…

A recent study from Health Affairs took aim at physician salaries.

Well, not exactly their salaries, but fees. It’s a subtle difference, but that nuance is lost in the mainstream media narrative.

According to the study, “American primary care and orthopedic physicians are paid more for each service than are their counterparts in Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.”

Thankfully …

Patient voices

To connect with patients is key

Anonymous

September 14, 2011Sep 14, 20119

con·nect (from dictionary.com) verb (used with object) 1. to join, link, or fasten together; unite or bind: to connect the two cities by a bridge; Communication satellites connect the local stations into a network. 2. to establish communication between; put…

con·nect (from dictionary.com)

verb (used with object)

1. to join, link, or fasten together; unite or bind: to connect the two cities by a bridge; Communication satellites connect the local stations into a network.

2. to establish communication between; put in communication: Operator, will you please connect me with Mr. Jones?

To connect with your patients is truly the key solution.

Connect takes on two meanings:

Establish a relationship; develop, dig, pursue
Maintain via all available tools: email,

…

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To connect with patients is key

Patient voices

All of us are role models, whether we see ourselves that way or not

Melanie Lane, MD

September 13, 2011Sep 13, 20112

All of us are role models, whether we see ourselves that way or not. Of course I love to imagine myself as a positive role model, but my eleven-year-old daughter has already informed me that things will be way different at her house when she’s a mama. However, we’re not going to focus on how uncool I am, instead, I’m going to share the stories of a couple of people …

Physician voices

How hospitals can avoid readmissions

Stephen Jencks, MD, MPH

September 13, 2011Sep 13, 2011

An interview by Curaspan Health Group with Stephen Jencks, MD, MPH. Stephen Jencks is lead author of the 2009 landmark study of the multibillion-dollar cost of readmissions, says there’s “been a great deal of movement” on readmissions since his work…

An interview by Curaspan Health Group with Stephen Jencks, MD, MPH.

Stephen Jencks is lead author of the 2009 landmark study of the multibillion-dollar cost of readmissions, says there’s “been a great deal of movement” on readmissions since his work was published in The New England Journal of Medicine, but there’s more that hospitals and communities can do.

Dr. Jencks, an independent consultant in health-care safety and quality, and …

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How hospitals can avoid readmissions

Health policy

ACP: Current and future payment and practice trends in medicine

American College of Physicians & Fred Ralston Jr., MD

September 13, 2011Sep 13, 20115

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com. In April 2011 I finished seven years on the Board of Regents of the American College of Physicians (ACP) including two years as Chair of the ACP Health…

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com.

In April 2011 I finished seven years on the Board of Regents of the American College of Physicians (ACP) including two years as Chair of the ACP Health and Public Policy Committee and serving during the last year as President. During that time I had the opportunity to be involved in some great discussions on health care within …

Physician voices

The problem of inadequate discussions of end of life wishes

Janice Boughton, MD

September 13, 2011Sep 13, 2011

The Annals of Internal Medicine occasionally reviews the articles and studies of note in a particular field of internal medicine for those of us who don't read all of the specialty journals. Recently, there was an update in pulmonary and…

The Annals of Internal Medicine occasionally reviews the articles and studies of note in a particular field of internal medicine for those of us who don’t read all of the specialty journals. Recently, there was an update in pulmonary and critical care medicine, the internal medicine specialty that is most intimately involved with caring for the very ill and those people who are at the ends of their lives. …

Patient voices

Children who curse, and the power of words

Yolanda Wong, MD

September 13, 2011Sep 13, 20115

Today was a rough day at work. My schedule of 10 patients for the afternoon rapidly ballooned into 17. People were sick and miserable. Those who were healthy were frustrated by the long wait. I heard myself apologizing over and…

The day was mostly a chaotic blur. Babies crying, phones ringing, parents reprimanding children on the brink of a meltdown. I don’t remember much of it, except …

Essential tips for medical journalists

Gary Schwitzer

September 13, 2011Sep 13, 2011

We're five years old. We've been doing the same thing the same way for five years and have analyzed over 1,488 stories using our ten standardized criteria on HealthNewsReview.org. We've recently returned from the annual Association of Health Care Journalists…

We’re five years old. We’ve been doing the same thing the same way for five years and have analyzed over 1,488 stories using our ten standardized criteria on HealthNewsReview.org.

We’ve recently returned from the annual Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) conference in Philadelphia, where we led a two-hour workshop, and where we received a tremendous amount of gratifying feedback on our work and many terrific suggestions about …

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Essential tips for medical journalists

Physician voices

Physicians need to be more proactive asking about code status

S. Irfan Ali, MD

September 13, 2011Sep 13, 2011

When I saw my first patient die, I was in shock. You will never forget your first one, that always stays with you. My first patient died during medical school, a young guy around 40. He died of complications from…

When I saw my first patient die, I was in shock. You will never forget your first one, that always stays with you.

My first patient died during medical school, a young guy around 40. He died of complications from endocarditis. He was fine in the afternoon, talking about his family and what he does, but when I came back in the morning he was gone. I was shocked beyond …

Health policy

Can cost accounting save health care?

Barry C. Dorn, MD & Eric J. McNulty

September 12, 2011Sep 12, 20113

In the September 2011 issue of Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business School professors Robert Kaplan and Michael Porter argue that a better understanding of the actual cost of care patient-by-patient can have a dramatic impact in the effort to control…

In the September 2011 issue of Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business School professors Robert Kaplan and Michael Porter argue that a better understanding of the actual cost of care patient-by-patient can have a dramatic impact in the effort to control health care costs. They maintain that actual costs are poorly understood, that there is a mistaken belief that many costs are too complex to allocate accurately, and that …

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Can cost accounting save health care?

Conditions and diseases

Biology and biography: The Two-B Factor of depression

Deborah Serani, PsyD

September 12, 2011Sep 12, 2011

An excerpt from Living with Depression: Why Biology and Biography Matter along the Path to Hope and Healing (Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group). To be human is to experience an array of different emotions. We can feel upbeat and hopeful,…

An excerpt from Living with Depression: Why Biology and Biography Matter along the Path to Hope and Healing (Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group).

To be human is to experience an array of different emotions. We can feel upbeat and hopeful, cool and unconcerned or frustrated and fearful in a given day—even in a given moment. The heart of human experience beats with moments of joy and flashes of sorrow, and with …

Patient voices

Explaining human motivation towards unhealthy behavior

Glenn Laffel, MD, PhD

September 12, 2011Sep 12, 201110

We have all seen people exhibit flagrantly unhealthy behavior. Some of us–though we’d never admit it–derive a certain, smug satisfaction by observing them. At least I don’t do that! Somewhere in the course of our daily lives though, most of…

We have all seen people exhibit flagrantly unhealthy behavior. Some of us–though we’d never admit it–derive a certain, smug satisfaction by observing them. At least I don’t do that!

Somewhere in the course of our daily lives though, most of us do exhibit behavior that suggests at least some disregard for our health. We don’t change our diet, though we know we should. We don’t floss, take medications as prescribed, or …

Physician voices

Requiring a prescription for OTC products is a waste of physician time

Edward Pullen, MD

September 12, 2011Sep 12, 201117

Most OTC products, excepting some medical equipment like crutches and diabetic supplies, now cannot be purchased with flexible spending account dollars without a physician prescription. One of my partners asked last week how I am dealing with this issue. He…

Most OTC products, excepting some medical equipment like crutches and diabetic supplies, now cannot be purchased with flexible spending account dollars without a physician prescription.

One of my partners asked last week how I am dealing with this issue. He has had several patients ask for a long list of prescriptions for OTC products so that they can use their FSP to pay for these things with pre-tax dollars. This puts …

Health technology

My iPad and my hip fracture

Paul Hsieh, MD

September 12, 2011Sep 12, 20113

Dear Apple: I've been a happy iPad2 owner since March 2011, but I never fully appreciated its value until I recently broke my hip in a bad fall and required subsequent hospitalization. I am a physician, so I had already…

Dear Apple:

I’ve been a happy iPad2 owner since March 2011, but I never fully appreciated its value until I recently broke my hip in a bad fall and required subsequent hospitalization.

I am a physician, so I had already been using my iPad for my work, reading PDFs of medical articles, communicating with my colleagues via e-mail, etc. But when I broke my hip in an accident a few days ago, …

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My iPad and my hip fracture

Patient voices

Who benefits most from psychological therapy?

Christina Girgis, MD

September 12, 2011Sep 12, 20119

There is a saying in psychiatry, "even bad therapy is good therapy." I always thought this was a terrible thing to say, but really, there’s some truth to it. The basic tenet of therapy is that a person is able…

There is a saying in psychiatry, “even bad therapy is good therapy.”

I always thought this was a terrible thing to say, but really, there’s some truth to it. The basic tenet of therapy is that a person is able to vent their feelings with an objective third party. Depending on how good the therapist is, he or she will be able to help that person process their feelings in …

Drugs and prescribing

The worst abuse of an embargo this medical journalist has ever seen

Larry Husten, PhD

September 12, 2011Sep 12, 20113

In general I support embargoes in medical journalism. Although the current system is far from perfect and contains all sorts of wrinkles and unexpected consequences, I support the system because it allows journalists a bit more time to work on complicated stories and to try to get them right. Recently, though, I came across the single worst abuse of an embargo that I have encountered in the course of my …

Real physician voices, twice a week

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