Oncology and Hematology

Physicians writing on KevinMD about cancer: the screening argument that has run since 2009, how a diagnosis is delivered, what treatment costs patients, life after treatment, and what the work does to oncologists. Four maintained records draw on this archive: Cancer: what physicians say, in their own words, End of life: what physicians say, in their own words, Prior authorization: what physicians say, in their own words, and Opioids: what physicians and pain patients say, in their own words.

The problem of conflicting professional medical guidelines

Juliet K. Mavromatis, MD

Physician

June 5, 2012

Guidelines for care increasingly help guide medical decision-making. If you’ve followed top health news over the past several years you’ve read conflicting statements about the utility of various medical procedures and tests. As a general internist I’ve devoured these reports with particular interest trying to wade through bias to formulate views that I believe will be of most benefit to my patients.

Recently I put together a talk about recommendations for …

Protecting patients by solving the problem of defensive medicine

Ellis Weeker, MD

Physician

June 2, 2012

In the United States many people feel it is their God given right to sue anyone, anytime for anything. Whether you are successful or not may be another story. So what are the cost implications for healthcare in the United States? Few other developed countries rely upon this method for resolving malpractice issues. What is the cost-benefit equation? To protect themselves, American physicians practice what is called defensive medicine designed …

As I progress through my medical career, I must make time to listen

Gregory Shumer, MD

Medical Education

June 2, 2012

I am four months into my third year of medical school. The third year is the first clinical year, when students spend most of their time in the hospital, interacting with patients and working as part of the medical team.

Our deans told us at the beginning of the year that we would be talking with patients more than anyone else on the medical team; we would serve as advocates for our …

How doctors handle fear will determine their ability to give care

James C. Salwitz, MD

Physician

June 1, 2012

There was a night when I was in training that all the decisions, disasters and chaos, which are the practice of medicine, caught up to me. In those dark hours, I felt practically despondent. What I had seen left me in tears and overwhelmed by the tasks in front of me.

At that moment a wise attending physician took a moment to sit with me. Rather than tell me how wonderful …

The power of words in cancer care

Don S. Dizon, MD

Physician

May 30, 2012

In oncology, there are certain words and phrases that (no matter how carefully said) suck the air out of a room, like “you have cancer,” “you’ve recurred,” “incurable,” “terminal,” and “hospice.” Such phrases require careful consideration before they are spoken, and most (if not all) oncologists understand the power of these words, and use them carefully. However, there are others that can …

Read more…

The power of words in cancer care

A radical transformation in healthcare decision making is needed

Marya Zilberberg, MD, MPH

Physician

May 29, 2012

I love when an article I read first thing in the morning gets me to think about itself all through my morning chores and then erupts into a blog post. So it was with this little gem in the statistical publication Significance. The author suggests making gambling safer by placing realistic odds estimates right on the poker machines in casinos. He even goes through the generation of the odds of …

Men’s health is a joke on television

Joel Sherman, MD

Physician

May 27, 2012

The mass media has a long history of covering medical dramas and rarely doing so with any realism. We’ve gone from Marcus Welby, MD to a host of shows dedicated to portraying medical personnel in the most salacious ways possible. But at least with all these dramas it is understood that they are fictional. There are now though a host of shows which pretend to show real life medical stories …

Read more…

Men’s health is a joke on television

How academic press releases are being used for free advertising

Deep Ramachandran, MD

Physician

May 26, 2012

You may have noticed the rash of medical news spewing from your favorite news outlets with greater frequency. As a medical professional you probably cringe as you envision the calls that are about to flood your office, “Doctor Smith, I heard a report on the news that this drug you prescribed to help me quit smoking is bad for my health!” or, “I want a referral to The Hoffenheimer Institute …

Confused about prostate cancer screening? Make a shared decision

Kevin Pho, MD

KevinMD

May 22, 2012

In a widely anticipated move, the USPSTF officially recommended against prostate cancer screening in healthy men.

Case closed, right?

Hardly.

The prostate cancer screening debate has been raging for the past decade. Increasing amounts of evidence show that screening does not save lives, and increase the risk of complications like impotence and urinary incontinence that stem from invasive diagnostic tests and treatments.

Regular …

Diversity provides color to the tapestry of human experience

Anees Chagpar, MD

Physician

May 19, 2012

I was recently appointed the Assistant Director of the Yale Cancer Center with the portfolio of Diversity/Disparities. While I’m not sure I’m the most qualified for this, it has gotten me thinking a lot about diversity, disparities, and what it means to achieve health equity. Too often, I think, we are plagued by narrow thinking … the impression that our …

9 skin signs for a yearly visit to the dermatologist

Carol R. Drucker, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 17, 2012

Visiting your dermatologist every year may be an important step to staying skin cancer-free. So, how do you know if you should schedule that annual appointment?

The answer depends on how likely you are to get skin cancer. Do you fall into one of these groups? Then, it’s time for a skin check-up.

1. Red hair and freckles. If you’ve got red or blond hair, fair skin, freckles and blue or light-colored eyes, you‘re …

Where you have your mammogram, and who reads it, matter

Stacey Vitiello, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 15, 2012

I’ve received several inquiries from women living in various regions of the country, asking how they should choose where to go for their mammogram, and if it really matters. I cannot emphasize this enough: It matters! Here are a few tips to help your search:

The most basic requirement is whether a facility is accredited under the MQSA (Mammography Quality Standards Act). The accrediting body for most states is the ACR …

Warren Buffett’s prostate cancer choices aren’t right for every man

Kevin Pho, MD

KevinMD

May 13, 2012

A version of this column was published on April 24, 2012 in USA Today.

There has been a recent uptick of elderly men in my primary care clinic asking about prostate cancer, perhaps because they heard of Warren Buffett’s recent prostate cancer diagnosis and his proposed treatment.

Patients are wondering if they should also be screened. Other patients who already have been diagnosed …

Are smokers to blame for the damage they do to their bodies?

James C. Salwitz, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 12, 2012

He had yellow nails, leather neck, stained teeth and a deep cough. He wheezed slightly, breathed too quickly and occasionally sprinkled the white handkerchief red. No surprise his ticket to my office was a lung mass to match. We talked about tests, treatment and prognosis. About the future, probably short. Devastated, he was not surprised. He was reaping the reward of 30 smoking years. He sadly admitted, “I knew better, …

Am I going to die because I cannot afford the test?

Ralph B. Freidin, MD

Physician

May 11, 2012

On my way to the hospital last week, I heard a 26-year-old woman describe her experience of becoming deathly ill. When she first realized that the many bruises appearing spontaneously across her body were unusual, she was working as coffee shop to pay off school loans. With the urging of a friend, she went to see a physician. The diagnosis was acute leukemia.

Her job did not provide health insurance and …

Embracing the longing without the outcome

Taruni Tan

Patient

May 7, 2012

I’m not sure when I stopped missing my husband. I suppose familiarity crept in after 7 years together and I rarely felt the pining, agitated pain of separation that I relished in the early days of our passionate love.

Running our restaurant from waking to sleep, 6 days a week meant that we were rarely apart. So JP had become as familiar to me as my 4 limbs, an essential part …

No one told me that getting on with life after cancer would be so hard

Merry Jennifer Markham, MD

Physician

May 7, 2012

I met with a young patient recently, a woman who has been done with chemotherapy for lymphoma for close to a year. She was feeling well, and she had no symptoms of cancer, nothing that made her suspicious of a recurrence. After I examined her and reviewed her most recent CT scan and labs, I agreed. No recurrence. I wrote in my note, “NED,” the acronym for no evidence of …

To test or not to test? Include the patient first

Peter Goldbach, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 6, 2012

Shannon Brownlee’s recent post, “Don’t discard shared decision making on the basis of PSA testing,” couldn’t ring more true. The crux of shared decision making is that the patient must decide, with his or her physician, which tests or procedures make sense, given the various risks, tradeoffs and outcomes. Discarding the construct on the basis of one test (PSA testing) is not only poor form in that it is a …

How single payer can improve the access to cancer care

Aldebra Schroll, MD

Physician

May 3, 2012

The call came in the middle of a busy office day; the radiologist had found a suspicious area on the mammogram. I had received similar calls many times in my primary care practice. This time was different; the patient was me.

My first thought “thank God I’m insured.” My second thought was for all those who are not. It was hard enough waiting the week, until further testing could be performed; …

Will the art of medicine be lost in the sea of guidelines?

Jordan Grumet, MD

Physician

May 1, 2012

I don’t like doctors!

It was always the same with Ronald. After years of absence, he would appear at my doorstep with some particular problem that had progressed to alarming proportions. Once, it was the abscess that seemed to swallow up his whole back. The next time, it was a hernia that had grown to the size of a grapefruit hanging out of his undergarments. But today was different. In fact, …

Oncology and Hematology

Oncology and Hematology

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts