Kenneth Lin, MD

Kenneth Lin is a family physician who blogs at Common Sense Family Doctor.

Shared decision-making in primary care: How can we make that happen?

Physician

January 7, 2016

One of the most notable things so many of last year’s biggest health stories have in common is that they envision an increased role for shared decision-making in primary care.

Some patients will want to receive few aggressive interventions at the end of life; others will want more. Some women will be fine with waiting until age 45 or 50 to get their first mammogram; others will still want to start at …

Pharmaceutical free speech is anything but free

Kenneth Lin, MD

Meds

December 30, 2015

The American Medical Association (AMA) recently called for a ban on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs and medical devices, arguing that this type of advertising drives the nation’s escalating drug bill by creating demand for new, expensive medications that are often no more effective than older ones. Since the first televised prescription drug ad aired in the U.S. in 1983, pharmaceutical companies have spent billions of dollars …

The full story on breast cancer screening. But do you want to listen?

Kenneth Lin, MD

Conditions

July 24, 2015

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The Men Against Breast Cancer Fund and several cancer advocacy and physician organizations have posted a petition on Change.org asking Congress to place a two-year moratorium on finalizing the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s draft recommendations on screening for breast cancer to forestall the possibility that health insurers will stop covering screening mammograms for women younger than age 50. Since 2010, …

A rare victory for evidence-based prostate cancer screening

Kenneth Lin, MD

Conditions

July 19, 2015

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As I previously documented in a series of posts, the road to the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force’s 2012 “don’t do it” recommendation on PSA-based screening for prostate cancer was long, arduous, and full of political pitfalls. It led to me leaving my position at the Agency for Healthcare …

Mission statements of medical schools: Here’s why they matter

Kenneth Lin, MD

Education

July 10, 2015

Over the years, applicants whom I’ve interviewed for positions in the first-year medical student class at Georgetown have often asked how our school’s mission statement influences the educational experiences and clinical services we provide:

Guided by the Jesuit tradition of Cura Personalis, care of the whole person, Georgetown University School of Medicine will educate a diverse student body, in an integrated way, to become knowledgeable, ethical, skillful, and compassionate physicians and …

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Mission statements of medical schools: Here’s why they matter

Throwing the kitchen sink at public health problems

Kenneth Lin, MD

Policy

May 20, 2015

The buzzwords many use in medicine today are “personalized,” “individualized,” or “targeted.” Rather than doctors prescribing tests or treatments that work in most people but might not work for you, proponents argue, we should tailor medical interventions to unique patient characteristics, such as genomic data. (The White House’s Precision Medicine Initiative is an example of this kind of thinking.) Although I am skeptical that big data-driven genetic …

Remember the psychological harms of cancer screening

Kenneth Lin, MD

Conditions

March 25, 2015

Several years ago, a few colleagues and I performed a systematic evidence review to help update the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendations on screening for prostate cancer. One of our key questions asked about the harms associated with prostate cancer screening, other than the overdiagnosis (and resulting unnecessary treatment) of clinically insignificant tumors. Since routine prostate-specific antigen screening had been going on for nearly two decades by then, we expected to …

Are cardiac risk calculators accurate?

Kenneth Lin, MD

Conditions

March 23, 2015

After more than a decade of titrating medications to low density lipoprotein cholesterol targets, family physicians who have transitioned to the 2013 American College of Cardiology / American Heart Association cholesterol treatment guideline now base treatment decisions on a patient’s estimated 10-year risk for a cardiovascular event. Although it endorsed the ACC/AHA guideline last year, the American Academy of Family Physicians expressed concern that the guideline’s new risk calculator had not been validated in …

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Are cardiac risk calculators accurate?

Providing health care to the poor: It’s time to get creative

Kenneth Lin, MD

Policy

March 10, 2015

When I speak with colleagues about ways to provide primary care to the poor, they generally fall into one of two camps. The first camp, generally supporters of the Affordable Care Act, contends that the ACA’s originally mandatory (but later ruled optional) expansion of Medicaid insurance eligibility and a temporary federally-funded increase in Medicaid fee-for-service rates to Medicare levels provided enough incentives to attract family physicians to patient-centered medical homes that …

Should we give more Tamiflu for influenza? A look at the evidence.

Kenneth Lin, MD

Meds

February 18, 2015

As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that people who received this season’s influenza vaccine were only 23 percent less likely to be diagnosed with influenza than unvaccinated persons, CDC director Tom Frieden was publicly urging high-risk patients and their physicians to use antiviral medications to prevent complications and disease transmission:

People who are sick with flu, if they’re very sick in the hospital or if they have …

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Should we give more Tamiflu for influenza? A look at the evidence.

Treating mild hypertension: The benefits are being questioned

Kenneth Lin, MD

Conditions

January 16, 2015

As part of a plan to improve our practice’s quality of care for patients with high blood pressure, my office’s nurse announces at every morning huddle which patients on that day’s schedule had a blood pressure measurement of greater than 140/90 at their last visit. Most of these patients have measurements consistent with mild hypertension (systolic blood pressure less than 160 mm Hg and/or diastolic blood pressure less than 100 …

Evidence-based preventive care: Should it be free?

Kenneth Lin, MD

Conditions

December 10, 2014

One of my residents presented some research that she had completed under my supervision. Since I left the staff of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force four years ago, it has been my sense that the Task Force has substantially lowered its evidence “bar” for recommending a preventive service, an impression confirmed in private discussions with colleagues who closely follow the group’s activities. In a JAMA editorial published last year, Drs. Steven Woolf …

Lung cancer screening and shared decision making: Will it happen?

Kenneth Lin, MD

Conditions

December 4, 2014

Recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) officially proposed coverage for annual low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) screening for lung cancer in current or former smokers age 55 to 74 years with at least a 30 pack-year history. In doing so, CMS followed the lead of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which had previously given a “B” grade recommendation for screening in a similar population through age 80 years.

In the …

OTC birth control pills: Let’s replace politics with science

Kenneth Lin, MD

Physician

November 18, 2014

I’ve waited to address this sensitive topic until after the midterm elections, when political slogans such as the phony “war on women” and trumped-up threats to religious liberty were discarded like so many campaign posters. It was curious to see the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and Planned Parenthood attacking Republican Senate candidates for supporting over-the-counter birth control pills without a prescription — a position that, if …

Small practices aren’t dead yet. Some are even thriving.

Kenneth Lin, MD

Policy

September 29, 2014

When I was in high school, a national hardware retailer opened a new franchise down the street from the mom-and-pop hardware store that had served my neighborhood for many years. Since the new store had the advantage of larger volumes and lower costs, it seemed to be only a matter of time before it drove its smaller competitor out of business, the way that big bookstore chains and fast-food restaurants …

Cancer screening in the elderly: Don’t be stupid

Kenneth Lin, MD

Conditions

September 1, 2014

The electronic medical record that my office uses features a clinical protocol button that we are encouraged to click during patient visits to remind us about potentially indicated preventive services, such as obesity and tobacco counseling and cancer screenings. I once tried it out while seeing a 90-year-old with four chronic health problems. The computer suggested breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and cervical cancer screenings: three totally inappropriate tests for the …

Lying to receive pain medications hurts patients in true pain

Kenneth Lin, MD

Conditions

August 28, 2014

My patients lie to me every day. Some tell me that they have been taking their medications regularly when they haven’t. Some say that they have been eating a healthy diet and exercising for at least 30 minutes every day and don’t know where the extra pounds are coming from. Some lie that they are using condoms every time they have sex, that they have quit smoking, and if they …

Misconceptions about palliative care are common

Kenneth Lin, MD

Physician

August 13, 2014

In inpatient settings, family physicians frequently care for patients with progressive, incurable conditions that cause severe pain. Interventions aimed at slowing the progress of a disease often add to patients’ physical distress; therefore, pharmacologic management of pain is a key component of end-of-life care, as outlined in an article in an issue of American Family Physician.

However, as Drs. Timothy Daaleman and Margaret Helton discuss in an accompanying editorial, providing analgesia is …

America’s need for a diverse generation of family physicians

Kenneth Lin, MD

Education

July 25, 2014

Since joining my current practice two years ago, I’ve noticed that I care for a disproportionate number of immigrants of Chinese and other Asian descent compared to my colleagues. Although both of my parents were born in Taiwan, I don’t speak Mandarin or have special expertise on medical conditions common in Asian Americans. Nonetheless, Asian patients seem more comfortable with me anyway. Similarly, U.S. health workforce analyses show that underrepresented …

A rational approach to CT lung cancer screening

Kenneth Lin, MD

Conditions

July 7, 2014

Recently, a family physician colleague asked me to explain why the Affordable Care Act requires private health insurers to provide first-dollar coverage for preventive services that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force assigns an “A” or “B” (recommended) rating, but allows public insurers (Medicare and Medicaid) to determine if and how they will cover these services.

Until recently, the question hadn’t come up, since Medicare has agreed to cover pretty much every …