The Immeasurable Value of Continuity of Care
Today I visited my internist for a checkup and flu shot. We talked about how I’m doing, and she examined me, and we discussed what procedures I ought have done and not done. She’s been ...
Essential Lessons
Notes on Kris Carr and Crazy Sexy Cancer
I’m half-tempted to put down yesterday’s new NYT Magazine feature on crazy sexy cancer goddess Kris Carr. Her blog was one of the first I found when I started ML, and it was the most ...
Reducing Cancer Care Costs: The Value of Physicians’ Cognitive Work
We’ve reached what may be my favorite of the proposed ways to reduce cancer care costs, published in the NEJM by Drs. Smith and Hillner. Idea Number 8 is to realign compensation to value cognitive services, rather ...
Looking Back on ‘The Normal Heart,’ and Patients’ Activisim
They were impatient with the pace of research and physicians’ protocols, and spoke out emphatically about their needs: for more research; for prevention and treatment; for easier access to new drugs; and, simply, for good medical care.
Get Off My Case
In my inbox this morning, via ASCO‘s “Cancer in the News” feed: The UK’s Telegraph (5/6, Beckford) reported that as “many as 20,000 British women could avoid developing” breast cancer “each year, if they took ...
In Defense of Primary Care, and of Sub-Sub-Sub-Specialists
An article in the March 24 NEJM called Specialization, Subspecialization, and Subsubspecialization in Internal Medicine might have some heads shaking: Isn’t there a shortage of primary care physicians? The sounding-board piece considers the recent decision of the American Board of Internal Medicine to issue certificates in two new fields: (1) hospice and palliative care and (2) advanced heart failure and plans in-the-works for official credentialing in other, relatively narrow fields like addiction and obesity.
The essay caught my attention because I do think it’s true that we need more well-trained specialists
Pink’s OK With Me
On Sunday, Feb. 20, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure will host its seventh annual Pink Elegance on Parade fashion show at the Radisson at Lackawanna Station hotel, reports the Scranton Times Tribune. The fundraiser will feature breast cancer survivors and others modeling fashions from Coldwater Creek, Lee’s Denim Diner, Luna Bleu and Suburban Casuals.
Some BC survivors, thrivors, thrivers, in-the-throws-ers and whatever we might call ourselves (I still can’t make up my mind on this) express disdain. Others, lately, convey cynicism, if not frank contempt, for the pink cancer culture in its entirety. Pink is tacky, pretty and possibly too rosy a color to link with the fate of so many sick and dying women.
I half-agree. But then again, I’ve never favored pastels:
Considering the Significance of a Doctor’s White Coat
A while back, a first-year med student asked me if I think physicians should wear white coats. There’s a debate about it, she mentioned. Indeed, in the spring of 2009 the AMA considered an unenforceable ...
Why the Term ‘Patient’ Is So Important in Health Care
roviding health care is or should be unlike other commercial transactions. The doctor, or other person who gives medical treatment, has a special professional and moral obligation to help the person who’s receiving his or her care. This responsibility – to heal, honestly and to the best of one’s ability – overrides any other commitments, or conflicts
After Breast Cancer, Get a Gym Membership!
The findings show that it’s safe for women who’ve had breast cancer surgery to work out in a way that includes a careful, progressive upper body strengthening. Weight lifting is not only safe; it can reduce lymphedema in women at risk. But “old wives’ tales” still persist in some doctors’ minds and established medical resources. These need be dispelled.
The U-Shaped Curve of Happiness
This evening, after I finished cleaning up the kitchen after our family dinner, I glanced at the current issue of the Economist. The cover features this headline: the Joy of Growing Old (or why life begins at 46). It’s a light read, as this so-influential magazine goes, but nice to contemplate if you’re, say, 50 years old and are wondering about your future.
The article’s thesis is this: Although as people move towards old age they lose things they treasure—vitality, mental sharpness and looks – they also gain what people spend their lives pursuing…
The Cost of Room Service and Other Hospital Amenities
A perspective in this week’s NEJM considers the Emerging Importance of Patient Amenities in Patient Care. The trend is that more hospitals lure patients with hotel-like amenities: room service, magnificent views, massage therapy, family rooms ...
A Play About the Life and Work of Dr. Rosalind Franklin
Franklin’s story starts like this: She was born in 1920 to a Jewish family in London. She excelled in math and science. She studied physical chemistry at Cambridge, where she received her undergraduate degree in 1941. After performing research in photochemistry in the following year on scholarship, she joined the British Coal Utilisation Research Association (BCURA) and carried out basic investigations on the micro-structure of coal and carbon compounds, and so earned a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. She was a polyglot, and next found herself in Paris at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimique de l’Etat, where she picked up some fine skills in x-ray crystallography.
You get the picture: she was smart, well-educated and totally immersed in physical chemistry before, during and after WWII. Single-minded and focused, you might say –
Why I Went for My Screening Mammogram
I was afraid to get a mammogram because I didn’t want to learn I had cancer….I feared having a “false positive,” and undergoing multiple tests to evaluate abnormal images that would turn out to be nothing…I didn’t have time for all that…
Another Take On An Ordinary Day
…Live Each Day Like There’s a Lot of Them Left….What she articulated is the idea that maybe the best thing to do after cancer is to live, essentially, as you would do otherwise, except with a bit of added balance:
The Physical Exam’s Value is Not Just Emotional
But what’s also true, in a practical and bottom-line sort of way, is that a good physical exam can help doctors figure out what’s wrong with patients. If physicians were more confident – better trained, and practiced – in their capacity to make diagnoses by physical exam, we could skip the costs and toxicity of countless x-rays, CT scans and other tests.
The “Survivor” Term After Breast Cancer: Is There a Better Expression?
The question is, what’s the right, PC and emotionally-sound, sensitive but not sappy term to describe the situation of a person who’s living after breast cancer?
Some might say, who cares if you’ve had it?
Mind over Matter? Don’t Kid Yourself (on Stress and BC)
I learned of a new study implicating stress in reduced breast cancer survival by Twitter. A line in my feed alerted me that CNN’s health blog, “Paging Dr. Gupta,” broke embargo on the soon-to-be-published paper ...
You’re Sick and I’m Not, Too Bad
“The insurance market as it works today basically slices and dices the population. It says, well you people with medical conditions, over here, and you people without them, over here…
– Jonathan Cohn, Editor of The New Republic, speaking on The Brian Lehrer Show, February 16, 2010*
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There’s a popular, partly true, sometimes useful and very dangerous notion that we can control our health. Maybe even fend off cancer.
I like the idea that we can make smart choices, eat sensible amounts of whole foods…
On Precious
This is my first film review, if it is that.
I was tempted to write about Ethan Hawke, hematologist among vampires in Daybreakers, but gore’s not my favorite genre. A mainstream choice would have been Harrison Ford solving the enzyme deficiency of Pompe disease in Extraordinary Measures, but I didn’t get sucked in.
I chose Precious, instead. This luminous movie relates to the practice of medicine everyday, big-time.