What Do We Need Doctors For?

… if doctors are just thinking, and not being the ones to call you back, or putting in intravenous catheters, or even just sitting and taking a thorough history – they’ll know you less well. And if they spend less time with you, a patient with a serious illness, they ….

Posted in Future of Medicine, health care delivery, Ideas, Life as a Doctor, Life as a Patient, Patient-Doctor RelationshipTagged , , , , , , , , 3 Comments on What Do We Need Doctors For?

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

Posted in Essential Lessons, Future of Medicine, health care costs, health care delivery, Medical Education, PolicyTagged , , , , , , , Leave a Comment on In Defense of Primary Care, and of Sub-Sub-Sub-Specialists

Skyping Medicine

Yesterday, Dr. Pauline Chen reported in the New York Times on virtual visits, a little-used approach for providing care to patients hundreds or thousands of miles apart from their physicians.

Telemedicine depends on satellite technology and data transfer. It’s a theoretical and possibly real health benefit of the World Wide Web, that giant, not-new-anymore health resource that’s transforming medicine in more ways than we know.

Posted in Communication, Diagnosis, Future of Medicine, Health IT, Patient-Doctor RelationshipTagged , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment on Skyping Medicine
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