Are newspapers willing to mislead the public, for a price?
Should newspapers sell advertising space to those who propagate misleading or demonstrably false information about scientific issues? Is the paper’s desire to earn “a little extra cash for depleted print coffers,” as the New York Times’ public editor put it, a good enough justification for doing so?
These are questions raised by the recent decisions by the Times and the Washington Post to publish in their print editions full-page, paid advertisements filled with misleading statements about climate change.
The papers published advertisements paid for by the Samsung Chemical Coating Co., titled “A N...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 14, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/nira-pollock-pamela-templer-jagesh-v-shah-and-jenny-m-tam" rel="tag" > Nira Pollock, MD, PhD, Pamela Templer, PhD, Jagesh V. Shah, PhD, and Jenny M. Tam, PhD < /a > Tags: Physician Mainstream media Source Type: blogs
Stressed and sad as a medical intern? You ’re not alone
A few weeks after I started residency, two of my peers killed themselves in New York City. No one I knew was surprised.
Intern year is hell, and everybody knows it from TV shows like “Scrubs” and books like “House of God.” Old doctors tell tall tales of working a million hours without sleep before training standards got “soft,” limiting residents’ monthly work hours to 320 and requiring four days off. That’s double the average worker’s hours with half the time off.
But why is intern year hell? High-pressure jobs with long hours in other fields don’t produce the same rates of depressi...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 14, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/lisa-jacobs" rel="tag" > Lisa Jacobs, MD, MBA < /a > Tags: Physician Psychiatry Source Type: blogs
Please call me doctor: In defense of feminist medicine
One stunning afternoon I walked into a patient’s room to discuss our plan, informing her that the nurse would come to draw blood.
“You can draw my blood, Miss,” said the male family member sitting in a corner of the room, as far from the patient as possible, his legs crossed, smirking, “We can go into the next room and lock the door.”
His smug grin brought back memories of older men in college bars. A desperate frat boy. A creep. Every woman knows that smirk and our bodies shudder before our brains even comprehend the insult — in this case, the absurdity of being solicited as a sex object in a patient...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 14, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/jenna-t-nakagawa" rel="tag" > Jenna T. Nakagawa, MD, MPH < /a > Tags: Physician Hospital Source Type: blogs
Hospital mergers don ’t work
There is a growing body of evidence that hospital mergers lead to higher prices for consumers, employers, insurance and the government. It is imperative to educate patients and lawmakers as to how the consolidation of hospitals and medical practices raise costs, decrease access, eliminate jobs and, ultimately, reduce care quality as a result. Lawmakers should focus on this “first pillar” of cost control as they go back to the drawing board.
In 2010, there were 66 hospital mergers in this country. Since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, the rate of hospital consolidation has increased by 70 percent. By creating ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 14, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/niran-s-al-agba" rel="tag" > Niran S. Al-Agba, MD < /a > Tags: Policy Hospital Source Type: blogs
Prescribing opioids safely: How to have difficult patient conversations
Drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S., and opioids account for over 60 percent of those deaths. While opioids are effective pain medications when used in the proper setting, concerns arise when the patient’s condition lasts longer than three months, and prescribing more medication does not necessarily result in better pain control.
Building a strong doctor-patient rapport can help facilitate conversations with patients about opioid prescriptions and reduce risks that could lead to malpractice suits. The Doctors Company reviewed 1,770 claims that closed between 2007 and 2015 in which patient h...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 14, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/roneet-lev" rel="tag" > Roneet Lev, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Pain management Source Type: blogs
Where is the patient in the discussion of the opioid epidemic?
The opioid epidemic has been declared loud and clear in the media over the past several years. Doctors have been demonized, and patients have been stereotyped. The statistics are alarming. However, I have yet to see anything published that focuses on the patient who lives with chronic pain. There is very little understanding for these individuals.
Let me be more specific. Society reacts empathetically towards the person who has pain related to cancer or a severe medical condition, such as a burn. But what about the patient with less tangible pain? We assume that these individuals are drug seekers that haven...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 13, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/s-blake-kelly" rel="tag" > S. Blake Kelly, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Pain management Source Type: blogs
United Airlines should do more than apologize profusely #BoycottUnited
Watching events unfold at United Airlines over the last few days have filled me with shock, awe, and horror. As a result of this public relations disaster, their motto “flying the friendly skies” has turned into “not enough seating, prepare for a beating.” America stands as a beacon of freedom from oppression. United Airlines was an iconic American company until last Sunday, with a responsibility to uphold the intent of the immortal words in the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 13, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/niran-s-al-agba" rel="tag" > Niran S. Al-Agba, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Emergency Source Type: blogs
Why did the GOP health plan fail? Maybe because of medical Darwinism.
“We are now contemplating, Heaven save the mark, a bill that would tax the well for the benefit of the ill.”
Although that quote reads like it could be part of the Republican repeal-and-replace assault against the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it’s actually from a 1949 editorial in The New York State Journal of Medicine denouncing health insurance itself.
Indeed, the attacks on the ACA seem to have revived a survival-of-the-fittest attitude most of us thought had vanished in America long ago. Yet, again and again, there it was in plain sight, as when House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) declared: “The idea of Obamacare is ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 13, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/michael-l-millenson" rel="tag" > Michael L. Millenson < /a > Tags: Policy Health reform Source Type: blogs
I sometimes need to be reminded I ’m not just a doctor, I’m human too
I took my dog to the vet today. You’d think this would be a straightforward sort of thing for a medical professional. You’d be wrong.
When I woke my dog up at 5:15 a.m. (my new daily start time, as it’s apparently the only way I can find time to do board questions and is also the excuse I use when I miss the majority of said questions), he seemed sleepy.
He’s a super hyper, ADHD-type dog, so slowly slinking about was not his usual MO. Despite my rational patient-assessing abilities, I naturally assumed he had cancer and checked his lymph nodes and examined his poop. I stuck my stubby “people” otoscope in his ea...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 13, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/april-edwards" rel="tag" > April Edwards, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Primary care Source Type: blogs
Please stop asking about my wife
“Do you have sex with men, women or both?”
This is the way that we were taught in medical school to ask a patient about their sexual history. When we took our sample standardized patient exams, we were scored whether or not we asked this question. In my understanding, this was supposed to be a non-judgmental, non-assuming way to elicit a sexual history.
However, romantic partners generally come before sex (unless we are speaking of one night stands). In asking about a patient’s personal life, medical school has unequivocally failed to teach student doctors how to sensitively ask about a patient’s romantic pre...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 13, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/seth-rosenblatt" rel="tag" > Seth Rosenblatt, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Primary care Source Type: blogs
Learning surgery one stitch at a time
My mind usually starts to wander around the third or fourth hour of retracting a fat flap or holding up a leg during a long operation. I start by guessing how many times the attending has done this particular procedure. Is it his hundredth time doing it? If he was one of the older attendings, perhaps it was his thousandth one.
As a neophyte in the operating room, I still relish the chance to scrub in on a case. There’s still a rush of adrenaline when the resident announces,“Incision!” to anesthesia, marking the start of long marathon.
Usually the chief resident starts, but it’s the attending who leads the charge as...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 13, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/steven-zhang" rel="tag" > Steven Zhang < /a > Tags: Education Surgery Source Type: blogs
Why doctors have a hard time talking about obesity
“For someone with your breast size, the risk of a complication is pretty high. I would recommend against the surgery.”
I smiled at the 50-year-old woman who sat in front of me wearing a pink, paper gown and a crestfallen look. She had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and was planning on undergoing a mastectomy as part of her cancer treatment. Her breast surgeon had referred her to me to discuss the possibility of beginning her breast reconstruction at the time of her mastectomy: an immediate breast reconstruction.
Prior to her arrival, I had reviewed her chart in the electronic medical record...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 13, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/vik-reddy" rel="tag" > Vik Reddy, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Obesity Source Type: blogs
Physicians can choose to nurture their human side
A keynote address to Gold Humanism Honor Society Induction Ceremony, Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA.
As an intern, I was assigned to 9 weeks over the year on the bone marrow transplant inpatient unit. It was medically fascinating but emotionally draining and anxiety provoking. I began to get nauseated going to work because I was having such a hard time with the rotation. As I sank deeper into anxiety and self-doubt as patient after patient died or had terrible complications, I met a patient who forever changed my attitude towards humanism in medicine, and I’d like to te...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 12, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/gretchen-diemer" rel="tag" > Gretchen Diemer, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Primary care Source Type: blogs
Translating the language of hospital administrators
Thanks to internist Steven Mussey for translating the language of hospital administrators.
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 12, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/admin" rel="tag" > Admin < /a > Tags: Video Hospital Source Type: blogs
I failed my patient, and it ’s a burden I’ll carry with me
This happened in my first couple years of practice, but I will never forget her.
I stood at the doorway of the funeral home, a 26-year-old mother lying in the open casket was off to the side. Standing out among the crowd of mourners was a tall man holding his one-year-old daughter, her curly locks of hair bouncing as he moved.
Soon after they were married, she became pregnant. They were a bright, young couple that had planned to have a large family and wanted to start right away. I was a fairly new doctor, not yet married myself, and embarrassingly, a bit envious of their relationship. They had an ease about them as if bin...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 12, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/andrea-eisenberg" rel="tag" > Andrea Eisenberg, MD < /a > Tags: Physician OB/GYN Source Type: blogs
