This one won't be on the daVinci website
The Baltimore Sun reports on a study:Using robotic techniques to remove a cancerous bladder doesn't reduce the risk of complications compared with conventional "open" surgery, according to a new comparison of 118 patients conducted by surgeons at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The study, detailed in the New England Journal of Medicine, marks the first ongoing comparison of the risks and benefits of the two techniques. Past studies concluded that the robotic technique meant less time in the hospital and fewer complications but they were done by looking back at the records of alrea...
Source: Running a hospital - July 28, 2014 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
book review: Getting Past the Fear. A Guide to Help You Mentally Prepare for Chemotherapy
Nancy Stordahl is an outspoken breast cancer advocate. She's been through treatment herself and lived through her mother's illness and death from metastatic disease. She started her blog, Nancy's Point, when she was still in treatment and continues to write there today. Nancy is generous with her experience and supportive of others living through breast cancer. Who better, then, to write a guide to conquering the fear of chemotherapy?Not just another advice manual, Getting Past the Fear: A Guide to Help you Mentally Prepare for Chemotherapy is full of advice and personal observations. It's not a long book, only 60 pages, b...
Source: Not just about cancer - June 17, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: book review books breast cancer cancer blog chemo chemotherapy community good stuff metastatic show and tell Source Type: blogs
Culture Change is Here: People are Price-Shopping for their Health Care
Culture change is here.
People are upset about rising health care prices and rising out-of-pocket expenses.
In fact, they’re so upset that they’re acting like consumers, by shopping around for their health care, and by sharing information, and by complaining about their outrage. And that’s a good thing.
When I founded clearhealthcosts.com a few years ago, I announced: “We’re bringing transparency to the health care marketplace by telling people what stuff costs.”
People laughed at us. They said it was impossible. We heard every objection you can imagine. And now: price transparency is a primary topic at confere...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - June 11, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Access Advocacy Choice Consumer Health Care Patients Source Type: blogs
please be kind on election day
Three years ago, I took a job as a Deputy Returning Officer for Elections Ontario. I'd read a post by Zoom about how she worked during one election and it intrigued me. At that time, I was mostly pushing myself to step outside my comfort zone. Fast forward to June 2014. It turns out that while it feels like much too soon for another election, three years is enough to forget - much like childbirth - the agony of 18 hours of pain, anxiety and boredom.So I'm doing it again.Last week I went to the mandatory training session. It turns out that only some of the candidates and the Returning Office have changed. We were given...
Source: Not just about cancer - June 3, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: activism community show and tell Source Type: blogs
Another VA lesson — Healthcare needs to stop being like flying business class
The VA healthcare story has me thinking about the good aspects of delays in medical therapy.
Typical American intuitive thinking holds that healthcare waiting lists are a bad thing. The two central tenets of this mindset are that healthcare brings health, and most of medicine is as time sensitive as cardiac arrest or heart attack.
Yet, when we engage our slow thinking minds it’s easy to see the flaws in such an early-intervention shortcut (heuristic). The business about healthcare not bringing health has been addressed here many times over. The short story is that in general we do best when treating the very sick, not so...
Source: Dr John M - June 3, 2014 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr John Source Type: blogs
Pain management and a chemical menopause
Current CA125 level: 11Current pain level: highMood: weary and uncertainThings have been on a bit of a roller coaster since I last wrote. Everything had been starting to get better since the hysterectomy last July and I was starting to feel physically stronger. Then a few months ago the pain came back and it's been getting worse ever since.I've always had some residual abdominal pain since the hysterectomy but day-to-day things had started to become a bit easier, like walking Molly to school and carrying Tess around. I got to Christmas feeling positive about the future and hopeful that hospital admissions were fina...
Source: Diary of a Cancer Patient - April 1, 2014 Category: Cancer Source Type: blogs
Las Vegas trial starts Monday in multibillion-dollar liability case against Actos
By CARRI GEER THEVENOTLAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNALTwo Clark County women are among thousands of plaintiffs across the country who have filed product liability lawsuits against the maker of the diabetes drug Actos.Delores Cipriano, 81, of Henderson and Bertha Triana, 80, of Las Vegas each filed lawsuits last year in District Court against Takeda Pharmaceuticals, a Japanese company that makes the prescription drug pioglitazone under the trade name Actos. Both women allege their bladder cancer was caused by the medication.Their cases have been combined, and their lawyers are scheduled to present opening statements to a jury this ...
Source: PharmaGossip - March 10, 2014 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
The Couch I Chemo'd On
As published on The Huffington PostMom and I return home from clinic at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center. Two days are down with three remaining in this chemo cycle, the sixth of 14 over 10 months. Mom throws her bag over her shoulder -- heavy with unopened water bottles; her black book containing labs, treatment protocol and doctors' contact information; and the sandwich I'll try to eat right away before nausea consumes me. Mom unravels my walker, opens my car door, helps me slide out with my leg brace, and carries my IV pump which will deliver medicine to protect my bladder.My heart rate accelerate...
Source: I've Still Got Both My Nuts: A True Cancer Blog - March 5, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: cancer treatment family life lessons Source Type: blogs
“We deeply regret and apologize for the fact that our promotional activities were partially inappropriate,” - Takeda CEO
The president of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. just acknowledged that the firm engaged in what has been described as so-called “inappropriate expressions” in the marketing of one of its blood pressure medications.Yasuchika Hasegawa, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. president, recently announced in a news conference in Tokyo that the firm used what he described as “inappropriate expressions” in the way in which it promoted one of its drugs used in the treatment of high blood pressure, according to a The Wall Street Journal report. Mr. Hasegawa also said that while “inappropriate expressions” were used, his company did not ...
Source: PharmaGossip - March 3, 2014 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Article social networks, meaning and redundancy
This is very much a 'thinking aloud' post. In October last year I posted Structure in Trip an article that described the social networks of articles in Trip, based on clickstream data. The analysis allowed me to produce graphs like the one below (based on the clickstream data of people searching for UTI.The structure is clear and I've labelled a few, the most prominent being UTIs and cranberry (in the bottom left of the graph). I'm increasingly of the opinion that this can be used to speed up the review process and also improve the search experience (but search is for another day). In social network analysis there is...
Source: Liberating the literature - February 26, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs
What was I thinking?
In 2008, I participated in a weekend long retreat run by Casting For Recovery on Cape Cod where we learned fly fishing. It was a retreat for women with breast cancer and had such an impact on me, I went back and volunteered in 2009, 2011, and 2012 (no retreat in 2010, 2013, and 2014). The woman who lead the retreat for 15 years resigned in 2012 and the group sort of fell apart as others also resigned because they had been volunteering as long and it was time to move on.Now, me, yes, me with all my health ailments has volunteered to be the new retreat coordinator for Massachusetts and Rhode Island and get the retreat going ...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - February 24, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: breast cancer cancer bonds casting for recovery coping healing volunteer Source Type: blogs
Kelly’s Cervical Cancer Journey
Below are experts from Kelly, author and creator of the blog My Cervical Cancer Journey. In her blog, she details her fight with cervical cancer from 2010 to the present.
My name is Kelly and I was diagnosed with cervical cancer stage 2 in May 2010. I had no idea what I was in for! You hear the word cancer and you have two choices: curl up in a ball or you fight. I am not a doctor but want to share my story from the patient point of view to help others.
I was 41 years old at the time of the diagnoses. I am a single mother of triplets. I was scared. My symptoms were constant bleeding. During the same tim...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - January 31, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Cancer Chronic Conditions Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Surgeon General's Report Implicates Filtered Cigarettes in Increasing Cancer Risk
According to an article at Law360.com, the recently-released Surgeon General's report's conclusion that cigarette filters may actually increase the risk of lung cancer could lead to a new wave of class-action lawsuits against cigarette companies.According to the article: "The U.S. surgeon general's landmark finding last week that filtered cigarettes may actually increase the risk of lung cancer could lead to a flurry of new lawsuits against tobacco companies and even expand cigarette litigation outside of Florida, where it has flourished for nearly a decade."The Surgeon General's report concludes that: "The introductio...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - January 27, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs
Court Evades US Concern Over False Claims And Side Effect Reports
Here is a ruling that is nothing but anticlimactic. After a few months of anticipation, a federal appeals court decided not to rule on an issue raised last summer by the US Department of Justice in a whistleblower case against a drugmaker – whether the failure to report adverse events can form the basis for filing a lawsuit citing the False Claims Act.
Here is the background, all of which is from our earlier story: A year ago, a federal court judge tossed a pair of whistleblower lawsuits that were filed by a former safety consultant, Helen Ge, who alleged Takeda misrepresented or altered descriptions of adverse events fo...
Source: Pharmalot - December 12, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
The patient hand off
How many times have you been the patient and been handed off from one shift to the next? And how often does that happen in a slightly overheard conversation between one nurse and the next or one doctor to the next? There never seems to be a formal system of it and it always seems to be rushed. It is a key place where misunderstandings over a patient's care can occur which result in medical errors.I have learned things about my care from hearing the nurse tell the next nurse that my gall bladder surgery did result in some fairly significant internal bruising during the surgery. The nurse had previously told me that it...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - December 4, 2013 Category: Cancer Tags: being a patient hospital medical errors safety Source Type: blogs
