The human cost of breast cancer screening
This article originally appeared in Forbes.
Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 18, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Peter Ubel, MD Tags: Conditions Cancer Source Type: blogs
Infant Dies Following 5 Vaccine Doses
Life after losing a loved one to vaccines is very painful. With a heavy heart, we share Sebastian Ryan Morley’s story. He was a healthy boy whose life ended after routine vaccinations. Sebastian’s mother and grandmother have worked many years in both the veterinary and human healthcare fields. What they were taught in school led them to believe vaccines were safe, but now they will never vaccinate again. We thank his family for coming forward and sharing very important information the public isn’t usually made aware of.
Sebastian’s grandmother, Valerie Murfin, shared:
“On December 11, 2002, when my grandson Sebas...
Source: vactruth.com - September 5, 2015 Category: Allergy & Immunology Authors: Augustina Ursino Tags: Augustina Ursino Human Top Stories adverse reactions dtap Hepatitis B vaccine Sebastian Ryan Morley truth about vaccines Vaccine Death vaccine injury VAERS Valerie Murfin Source Type: blogs
American Hospitals Need to Stop Offering Fast Food, Quick!
Ban on Hospital Smoking: A Model
In the 1950′s the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published what was, at the time, an incredibly surprising finding: smoking is detrimental to health1. By 1964, the Surgeon General had publically acknowledged the linkage between smoking and cancer and, by the seventies, the smoking-cancer relationship was standard curricula in U.S. medical schools 2. Despite both medical and public awareness, however, hospital policy lagged behind the science; most healthcare centers had little to no official regulation regarding smoking in their facilities2. Reducing Smoking in Hos...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - August 26, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Consumer Health Care Food Policy Publc Health Source Type: blogs
An avoidable catastrophe?
This is an observational study only, and it doesn't completely answer the question, but this analysis in JAMA Oncology certainly poses one. Understanding this is a bit complicated, and remember, I'm not a real doctor, I'm a doctor of philosophy, but let me tell you what it means to me.Narod et al used a registry called the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database to see what happened over 10 and 20 years to women who were diagnosed with so-called Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (DCIS). These are clusters of abnormal cells inside the milk duct. Until the widespread use of screening mammography, they were essentia...
Source: Stayin' Alive - August 21, 2015 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
How should we treat stage 0 breast cancer?
I’ve written more times than I can remember about the phenomenon of overdiagnosis and the phenomenon that is linked at the hip with it, overtreatment. Overdiagnosis is a problem that arises when large populations of asymptomatic, apparently healthy people are screened for a disease or a condition, the idea being that catching the disease at… (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - August 21, 2015 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Cancer Clinical trials Science breast cancer ductal carcinoma in situ overdiagnosis overtreatment Source Type: blogs
Jimmy Carter has announced that he has cancer and it has spread. What does that mean?
If there’s one thing about how cancer is discussed in the media that drives me absolutely bonkers, it’s how seemingly whenever a public figure announces that he has cancer information is rationed to the point where the announcement is basically meaningless. I can understand why someone might not want to disclose more about his disease… (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - August 13, 2015 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Cancer Medicine Politics carcinoma of unknown primary colorectal cancer Jimmy Carter liver Source Type: blogs
A father keeps his cancer secret from his daughter. The reason will break your heart.
Norman cried the night his daughter was born. For hours and hours. Each time he looked at her perfect head, touched the few strands of blond hair, held her in his arms, soft, smooth skin, soapy smell, pale blue eyes, tears poured down his cheeks. He felt alive. He felt alone. They named her Matilda, after his father. It was the right thing to do, because his father, Matthew, had dropped dead the day before.
He got over his Dad’s death, as much as any of us heal from the loss of someone we need. We live in a new world. Still, Mattie’s birthdays were bittersweet. Norm’s lost dream of giving his Dad that first grandchil...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - August 4, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: James C. Salwitz, MD Tags: Physician Cancer Source Type: blogs
You can never be prepared for a diagnosis of breast cancer
November of last year found me living as best I could with several health issues, the most debilitating of which stems from never having recovered from a serious viral infection in 2001. I’ve been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, a little understood and much-misunderstood illness. It keeps me virtually housebound. For the most part, I’ve made peace with feeling sick all the time. In fact, recently I’d been thinking that I could be OK with the prospect of spending the rest of my life with flu-like symptoms as my constant companions.
Then, totally unexpectedly, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was discov...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 6, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Toni Bernhard, JD Tags: Patient Cancer Source Type: blogs
Addressing the risks of indoor tanning
With May being Skin Cancer Awareness Month and in tandem with our event Wednesday co-hosted with the Congressional Families Cancer Prevention Program, The Hazards and Allure of Indoor Tanning Beds on College Campuses we are running a series on skin cancer. Be sure to check back daily for posts on skin cancer including how you prevent and detect it. Enjoy!
It is not the kind of selfie we usually expect to see on Facebook. A young woman looks forlornly away from the camera, her face covered from top to bottom with bloody scabs—the result of treatment for skin cancer. The therapy is aggressive; but it is necessary, because ...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - May 19, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Advocacy Cancer Source Type: blogs
The Myths of Indoor Tanning
With May being Skin Cancer Awareness Month and in tandem with our event next week, The Hazards and Allure of Indoor Tanning Beds on College Campuses we are running a series on skin cancer. Be sure to check back daily for posts on skin cancer including how you prevent and detect it. Enjoy!
A healthy glow. A base tan. Safer than the sun.
I’ve heard these myths from indoor tanning proponents for years. The reality is there is not a single ounce of scientific merit to validate these fallacies.
This Skin Cancer Awareness month, let’s put an end to the myths and get the facts straight.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - May 15, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Why code status should be modified
“Good morning baby,” she said to me each morning I when I came into her room.
Ms. K was an educated woman in her early 50s with three children. She loved drinking tea in the morning. She also had a very advanced case of lobular carcinoma of the breast that had extended into her abdomen. A cluster of cancer cells was obstructing her small intestine, causing her to have nausea, vomiting, and relentless pain. Yet, she managed to smile through much of it.
Continue reading ...
Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 27, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Natalie Wilcox Tags: Conditions Palliative care Source Type: blogs
Reflecting on the physician’s social contract
“55-year-old man with history of laryngeal carcinoma, status-post radiation therapy, laryngectomy, bilateral neck dissection, with metastases to the lung, status post thoracotomy, currently undergoing chemotherapy who is being admitted for a for first-time seizure. Patient is a transfer from Riker’s Island.”
Prisoners are a common occurrence in Bellevue Hospital. This, however, was my first prisoner-patient. The hyphenation both as I write this now and as it formed as a concept in my mindset off a series of internal dialogues and periods of self-reflection regarding the rights of patients, physicians, and if these ri...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 17, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Hadi J. Minhas Tags: Physician Primary care Source Type: blogs
Health Affairs’ April Issue: The Cost And Quality Of Cancer Care
This study is part of Health Affairs’ DataWatch series.
Under the new pay-for-performance models, how do low performers fare?
Jessica Greene of George Washington University’s School of Nursing and coauthors studied the impact of a primary care provider compensation model—that of Fairview Health Service, a Pioneer accountable care organization in Minnesota—in which 40 percent of providers’ compensation was based on their clinic-level quality outcomes. The researchers examined providers’ performance data before the model and two years after implementation,
The best predictor of improvement was the primary care pr...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - April 6, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Chris Fleming Tags: Access All Categories Chronic Care Comparative Effectiveness Consumers Europe Health Care Costs Health Care Delivery Pharma Policy Quality Research Source Type: blogs
Ignorance, Knowledge, and Bliss; Not Always Obvious
I’ve just finished sitting through a wonderfully aptly named lecture: Probability and Sadistics, in which, among other things, we learned (again) that the utility of various clinical tests depends at least as much and generally more on the patient and condition involved than on the specific test itself. From stress tests to mammograms to PSAs, the relationships of true and false positive and negatives, positive and negative predictive values all hinge on the prevalence of disease; or how likely is it that a given condition is present before you even do the test. Lots of times when you crunch those numbers, the best a...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - March 22, 2015 Category: Primary Care Authors: notdeaddinosaur Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs
