Dr. Elaine Schattner's notes on becoming educated as a patient
Dr. Elaine Schattner's notes on becoming educated as a patient
© Elaine Schattner, 2009, 2022 By : Template Sell.
Today’s Wall Street Journal includes a special Big Issues health care section. A post on their blog caught my attention: Should Patient Have Electronic Identification Numbers? The idea is that people who use health care would each be assigned a universal patient identifier, or UPI. This unique number would link to a person’s health records. […]
A funny thing happened at my doctor’s appointment on Friday. I checked in, and after confirming that my address and insurance hadn’t changed since last year, waited for approximately 10 minutes. A worker of some sort, likely a med-tech, called me to “take my vitals.” She took my blood pressure with a cuff that made […]
Last week a video came my way via ZDoggMD, a popular blog by doctors who are not me. The Office Med School Edition — The clip is a parody of The Office about Problem Based Learning (PBL). In a typical PBL, the students meet regularly in small groups. On Monday they begin with clinical aspects of a case. The […]
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 my doctor since the summer of 1987, when I was an intern at the hospital. We reviewed so much that […]
This week the Times ran a leading story on a new med school admission process, with multiple, mini-interviews, like speed dating. The idea is to assess applicants’ social, communication and ethical thinking (?) skills: …It is called the multiple mini interview, or M.M.I., and its use is spreading. At least eight medical schools in the United […]
Recently the NEJM ran a Sounding Board piece on Bending the Cost Curve in Cancer Care. The authors take on this problem: Annual direct costs for cancer care are projected to rise — from $104 billion in 20061 to over $173 billion in 2020 and beyond.2…Medical oncologists directly or indirectly control or influence the majority […]
Forbes kept a close eye on the annual ASCO meeting in Chicago. On THE MEDICINE SHOW, Forbes’ Matthew Herper provides a précis of a speech by outgoing ASCO President Dr. George Sledge. Here are my two favorite parts: “So what happens when, a few years from now, a patient walks into a doctor’s office and […]
Yesterday I wrote on some tough decisions facing a TV show‘s protagonist. She’s got metastatic melanoma and might participate in a clinical trial when the show resumes. Now imagine you’re an oncologist, or a real patient with this killing disease – you really need to be on top of new developments, to understand the pros […]
The author learned a new word this weekend while attending the annual meeting of the Association of Health Care Journalists in Philadelphia. In a richly-informative session on ethics of clinical trials, one of the speakers, Dr. Jason Karlawish – a bioethicist, geriatrician and Alzheimer’s researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, taught me a new term: […]
Today Ed Silverman of Pharmalot considers the case of a ghost-written medical text’s mysterious disappearance. The 1999 book, “Recognition and Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders: A Psychopharmacology Handbook for Primary Care,” (reviewed in a psychiatry journal here) came under scrutiny last fall when it became evident that the physician “authors” didn’t just receive money from a […]
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
The Times ran an intriguing experiment on its Well blog yesterday: a medical problem-solving contest. The challenge, based on the story of a real girl who lives near Philadelphia, drew 1379 posted comments and closed this morning with publication of the answer. Dr. Lisa Sanders, who moderated the piece, says today that the first submitted […]
Since Watson won on Jeopardy, there’s been lots of talk of robots assuming doctors’ roles. Ten years into our future, machines with programmed empathy and nuanced diagnostic skills will solve diagnostic dilemmas, deduce optimal treatment and make us well. Yesterday I found a new Xtranormal video, this one crafted by Dr. Charles of his excellent […]
Today’s Times reports on our nation’s students’ poor science test results. The results are bleak: only 34% of fourth graders scored at a “proficient” level or higher; just 30% of eight graders scored at a proficient level or higher; 21% of twelfth graders scored at a proficient or higher level in science. The mega-analysis, prepared […]
This morning I toured Google’s new Body Browser. The trip wasn’t as easy as I’d envisioned; I got sidetracked on my way, having to update my Web browser before entering. The site requires an advanced Web browser, like Chrome beta or Firefox 4.0, to accommodate 3-D graphics.
Update accomplished, I forged into Google-woman’s frame. (There is no man available, as yet.)
The cover of the November print edition of Wired features large, unnatural-appearing cleavage. Inside and toward the back of the issue, a curious article ties together stem cells and the future of breast reconstruction. It got my attention. The detailed and admittedly interesting piece, by Sharon Begley, describes what’s science or science fiction: first humans, […]
Expertise can make a huge difference in clinical outcomes.
What is comparative effectiveness research and why does it matter? The idea, basically, is to inform medical decisions with relevant data derived from well-designed clinical trials. This sort of research will provide the foundation for evidence-based medicine (EBM).
“This caught my interest because it doesn’t diminish physicians’ autonomy,” Blumenthal said. It just enables them to make decisions for their patients in the context of additional, current information. “The end goal is not to adopt technology, but to improve care.”
There’s been a recent barrage of med-blog posts on the unhappy relationship between doctors and electronic communications. The first, a mainly reasonable rant by Dr. Wes* dated August 7, When The Doctor’s Always In, considers email in the context of unbounded pressure on physicians to avail themselves to their patients 24/7. That piece triggered at […]
