Patients and caregivers writing on KevinMD about illness and the health care system from the other side of the exam table: navigating care, the doctor-patient relationship, being heard, cost, and what patients want physicians to understand. Physicians who have become patients write here too. For the record of what pain patients and physicians have said to each other about opioids since 2007, with patient authors cited at the same weight as physicians, see Opioids: what physicians and pain patients say, in their own words. For what patients pay and who is left out when physicians leave insurance, see Direct primary care: what physicians say, in their own words. For what patients, families, and physicians have said about dying, hospice, and the decisions families face, see End of life: what physicians say, in their own words. For what physicians and family caregivers have said about growing old, dementia, nursing homes, and caring for aging parents, see Aging and dementia: what physicians say, in their own words.
A recurring theme on e_Patients.net is the need for empowered, engaged patients to understand what they read about science. It’s true when researching treatments for one’s condition, it’s true when considering government policy proposals, it’s true when reading advice based on statistics. If you take any journal article at face value, you may get severely misled; you need to think critically.
Sometimes there’s corruption (e.g. the fraudulent vaccine/autism data reported …
A fascinating, beautifully-written article on a death penalty granted to a most likely innocent man, with interesting details on fire dynamics and the history of the judicial system pertaining to the death penalty.
Reading about the system in place that should prevent an innocent man from being wrongfully executed reminds me of the supposed system that prevents medical errors from occurring – both are imperfect, with innocent victims falling through …
Recently, the American Journal of Medicine published a study with the unexpected conclusion that hospitalized patients were more likely to die or stay long in the care of an experienced physician than in the care of a recent graduate from residency: “When doctors weren’t very busy, they kept patients in the hospital for roughly the same average time no matter how many years of experience they had. But when they did have a …
As I point out in The Medical Profession Is Dead and the Doctor Is “Critically Ill!“, more factions are able to charge for and be reimbursed for healthcare delivery than ever before. This has come about through creating boutique health care niches. The demand for boutique care is being driven by entrepreneurial interests, and, once brought to fruition, then being managed with corporation business tactics — i.e., for profit.
I interviewed about 150 medical leaders just a few years ago for my book The Future of Medicine – Megatrends in Healthcare. Not one mentioned wireless devices as a coming megatrend. How fast the world changes! Nowadays everyone has a cell phone and we rarely stop to think that just two decades ago almost no one had them. We have a laptop or tablet computer that can access information from the web …
There seems to be an inverse relationship between the amount of spin one hears about “the next big thing” and reality. First it was EMRs and virtual e-visits, then social media, and now patient portals seem poised to be next big thing. The drumbeat of vendors and pundits is unmistakable: physician that don’t adapt will be toast. It can all sound pretty convincing until you ask to see the evidence. …
Women have a long history of risking health for beauty. But several developments over the past few months suggest they might be starting to choose safer options.
1. Temporary tattoos. The latest trend on the runway and in the beauty isle is temporary tattoos, according to the advertising firm JWT. Chanel now offers limited-edition skin art, and Beyoncé has signed up to help sell Temptu’s product. Permanent tattoos not only cost …
Dear Members of the Illinois State Board of Education,
As a parent of a child attending Illinois Public Schools, a taxpayer, and a board-certified pediatric allergist and immunologist, I was distressed to hear of the irresponsible comments made by Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) Members Catherine Campbell and Lawrence Gregorash regarding the requirement for Illinois schools to have a food allergy policy in place by 2011.
My friend Nancy went for physical therapy for her back pain the other day, and was really surprised by what she saw there: the place was full of kids.
“Yeah, it’s like this now,” said the therapist when Nancy asked about it. “It’s the sports.”
It’s not that kids are getting clumsier or having more accidents. The injuries that are sending kids to physical therapy are overuse injuries. Kids these days are …
I love my job as a primary care doctor, and I enjoy sharing the joy with students who visit me at the community health center where I work. It is terrible to read in the press (and to hear from students) that angst and frustration are the predominant emotions associated with primary care. While there are sources of frustration in what I do, these are overwhelmingly outweighed by the satisfaction …
Privacy, is it important to you? Do you believe that your medical and personal information should be kept in strict privacy? Do you expect your doctor to keep your information private? What is the cost of privacy?
The computer I am typing this article on is protected by Norton’s Security Suite and by Comcast’s Constant Guard. My friends, family, and patients invest a small fortune every year to keep their …
It is easy to continue practice patterns we establish over the years. In my daily life as a general internist I am more likely to look for more information on a condition I don’t see regularly than on one that I see all the time. While we want …
The most memorable tag line from the speech was, “There is no billing code for compassion.” This resonated with so many of us — patients and providers — in part because it set forth the proposition that compassionate care should be an inherent aspect …
We all know that outdoor aerobic exercises like running and biking are good for your health. But during the hottest days of summer, it’s not just excess heat we have to worry about, but smog, the concentrated air pollution you can often see hovering over the cityscape. During the hot summer months, smog can become a serious health problem in the Boston area. We are often downwind from the Midwest’s …
In his online essay, This Won’t Hurt A Bit, cardiologist Dr. Eric Van De Graaff tells his own story of being a hospital patient after surviving a motorcycle accident while he was in med school. His experiences as a patient will sound very familiar to heart patients, and the lessons he learned while on the other end of the stethoscope may very well have made him a far better doctor.
A 76-year-old woman is reevaluated after results of thyroid function tests performed 2 weeks ago are abnormal. The patient otherwise feels well. She has a history of hypertension, atrial fibrillation, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and depression. Current medications are metoprolol, amiodarone, warfarin, omeprazole, and sertraline.
Imagine you have severe depression and go to a Boston emergency room for treatment. You are told to follow up with a psychiatrist within two weeks. You have good health insurance, so this shouldn’t be a problem, right?
Wrong. In a new study just published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, we found quite the opposite. Access to outpatient psychiatric care in the greater Boston area is severely limited, even for those with …
Today the patient is far different than the patient of a few decades ago. Patients can find healthcare information just as easily as a physician and many patients are taking a greater role in their healthcare and want to be involved in the decision making and work with the doctor as a team with the doctor being the captain of the healthcare ship. This new attitude has been referred to …
Bullies are terrorizing residents in long-term care and assisted living facilities, senior centers, and retirement communities around the country. The first time I witnessed older adults bullying others was at a senior center where, after a great deal of resistance from members, the age for joining the center had finally been lowered from 62 to 55 years old. Most local senior centers had already lowered their membership age years …
If I can help it, I want to make sure that nobody gets a disease that could have been prevented. Sure, accidents happen. And illnesses show up every day in the lives of people who did nothing to deserve them, and who could have done nothing to prevent them. But not all illnesses.
Physicians know that newly diagnosed diabetic patients present to the doctor …
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the 
