Jeffrey Hall Dobken, MD, MPH
Jeffrey Hall Dobken is an adjunct assistant professor of public health, New York Medical College.
Is this your author page?
Make it work for you. Your KevinMD author page is one of the highest-ranking results for your name. An enhanced author page turns this page into a premium profile with your photo, biography, affiliations, publications, and links, publishes your accepted articles in 1 to 3 days, includes a listing in Experts by KevinMD, and comes with a guaranteed interview on The Podcast by KevinMD. See an example · See the enhanced author page → Cancel anytime.
Latest articles
Conditions and diseases
She is 11, a fifth-grader, as prepubescent as nature allows, and utterly terrified. She hasn’t eaten normally for nearly a month, her mother reports. She sleeps poorly, reports nightmares, and cleans her hands so obsessively that she is literally bleeding…
She is 11, a fifth-grader, as prepubescent as nature allows, and utterly terrified.
She hasn’t eaten normally for nearly a month, her mother reports. She sleeps poorly, reports nightmares, and cleans her hands so obsessively that she is literally bleeding raw.
Her fifth-grade peer group typically does not guard its language nor govern its remarks, so every utterance is attention-demanding, black-and-white, dripping with drama. And she hears the constant drumbeat reporting of …
Read more…
COVID-19 coronavirus needs apolitical truth-telling
Physician voices
According to George Orwell, "serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, with jealousy, with boastfulness, with disregard for all rules, and with sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is…
According to George Orwell, “serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, with jealousy, with boastfulness, with disregard for all rules, and with sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.”
Ok … sounds pretty much like the Super Bowl, but the Tour de France? Lance Armstrong? Ergogenic aids? Cancer …
Read more…
It is time for us to succeed by being the best that we can be
Health policy
It's really quite an ancient debate: 400 to 500 years before the birth of Christ, on the island of Kos (home of Hippocrates) originates the myth of Aesculapius, god of healing, son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis. As is…
It’s really quite an ancient debate: 400 to 500 years before the birth of Christ, on the island of Kos (home of Hippocrates) originates the myth of Aesculapius, god of healing, son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis.
As is not unusual in Greek mythology, Coronis meets a violent death, but the infant Aesculapius is saved. He is raised by a wise centaur, becomes skilled in healing arts, and succeeds in …
Read more…
Implementing the Affordable Care Act will increase physician tension
Health policy
Legend tells of an Athenian named Pheidippides who, in 490 B.C., ran from the battlefield at Marathon to Athens, telling of the victory over the Persians. Proclaiming the news that Athens would be spared pillage and fire, the Athenian dropped…
Legend tells of an Athenian named Pheidippides who, in 490 B.C., ran from the battlefield at Marathon to Athens, telling of the victory over the Persians. Proclaiming the news that Athens would be spared pillage and fire, the Athenian dropped dead. The story is a myth.
But the marathon, like most things worth doing, does offer both risks and rewards. Because it gives a chance to go beyond usual boundaries, with …
Read more…
What does the NYC Marathon have to do with health reform?
Patient voices
POLST stands for "Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment". It is a next generation replacement for an Advanced Directive and DNR ("Do Not Resuscitate") order. Advanced planning documents turn out to be less than useful, especially in urgent care settings, and…
POLST stands for “Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment”. It is a next generation replacement for an Advanced Directive and DNR (“Do Not Resuscitate”) order. Advanced planning documents turn out to be less than useful, especially in urgent care settings, and many patients receive more aggressive care than they might want because universal, transferable physician orders are unavailable or, simply, not applicable because a patient is in a different care setting.
The …
Read more…
POLST and the next generation of the “Do Not Resuscitate” order
Health policy
Hard choices and healthcare reform are here. Donald Berwick, M.D., has been installed as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services as a “recess appointment” by President Obama. Dr. Berwick is an academician, a pediatrician who has…
Hard choices and healthcare reform are here. Donald Berwick, M.D., has been installed as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services as a “recess appointment” by President Obama.
Dr. Berwick is an academician, a pediatrician who has spent the bulk of his professional existence as the CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement of Cambridge, MA. He is an outspoken advocate for the single-payer system, admires Britain’s National …
Read more…
Healthcare reform ethical questions
Health policy
Early in paralytic poliomyelitis, the patient exhibits weakness; hyperesthesia; muscular pain, frequently quite severe; antalgic (reflexive) immobilization (spasm) of involved muscles; and normal or accentuated tendon reflexes. This phase is rapidly followed by loss of motor function, which is usually…
Early in paralytic poliomyelitis, the patient exhibits weakness; hyperesthesia; muscular pain, frequently quite severe; antalgic (reflexive) immobilization (spasm) of involved muscles; and normal or accentuated tendon reflexes.
This phase is rapidly followed by loss of motor function, which is usually asymmetric and noncontiguous: one or both legs in 60 percent of the cases; one or both arms in 25 percent. Involvement of the diaphragm and intercostal muscles reduces ventilatory capacity. Cranial …
Read more…
Poliomyelitis doesn’t make the health reform cut
Health policy
Giving advice is usually a thankless business. I have always been mindful of the unconsciously profound summation given by a six-year-old when she was asked to identify Socrates. "Socrates," she stated, "was a really old Greek guy who went around…
Giving advice is usually a thankless business. I have always been mindful of the unconsciously profound summation given by a six-year-old when she was asked to identify Socrates. “Socrates,” she stated, “was a really old Greek guy who went around giving people good advice. They poisoned him.”
But here goes: We do not need government intervention to improve our health, and, by extension, the quality of our lots in life.
This essay …
Read more…
Government and marathon runner motivation
Physician voices
The bioethics community has been working on defining the concept of medically futile care for more than a quarter of a century, yet the debate continues. The way in which the current notion of medical futility becomes folded into the…
The bioethics community has been working on defining the concept of medically futile care for more than a quarter of a century, yet the debate continues. The way in which the current notion of medical futility becomes folded into the proposed healthcare reform bills is at a critical point.
Sophisticated medical technology that is at once life-saving, life-prolonging as well as death-prolonging has created populations which, in the past, would have …
Read more…
Ethics of futile care
Conditions and diseases
Originally posted in MedPage Today She is 11, a fifth grader, as prepubescent as nature allows, and utterly terrified. She hasn't eaten normally for nearly a month, her mother reports. She sleeps poorly, reports nightmares, and cleans her hands so…
Originally posted in MedPage Today
She is 11, a fifth grader, as prepubescent as nature allows, and utterly terrified.
She hasn’t eaten normally for nearly a month, her mother reports. She sleeps poorly, reports nightmares, and cleans her hands so obsessively that she is literally bleeding raw.
Her fifth grade peer group typically does not guard its language nor govern its remarks, …
Read more…
How constant H1N1 breaking news updates may be going too far
Real physician voices, twice a week
Free, and one click to unsubscribe.
