July 25th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Expert Interviews, Health Policy
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I had the chance to interview Drs. Carmona, Satcher, and Novello about the current state of America’s war on cancer. I’ll post each conversation in a separate blog entry. This post explores Dr. Carmona’s views on diagnostic testing and early intervention.
Dr. Val: You said that screening tests could improve outcomes in 90% of people with cancer. Tell me more about that.
Dr. Carmona: First of all, a lot of people don’t know they have cancer until really late in the game. They show up asking things like “How come this thing is growing on my chest?” or “Why does my stomach hurt?” With appropriate screening tests targeted especially towards people who have risk factors (that one can determine by asking them about family history and environmental risk factors) you can capture about 90% of cancers at an early stage. Diagnosing cancer early is the key to improving outcomes and the chance for cure.
Dr. Val: Which are the most important cancer screening tests that people are not accessing now?
Dr. Carmona: All of them. Routine breast exams, mammograms, rectal exams, colonoscopies are the most commonly missed screening exams. And science is advancing at such a rate that we’ll soon be able to test for cancer with biomarkers – that is, blood tests that will determine whether or not cancer is present or if a person is at a higher genetic risk for cancer.
We already know about the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that predispose women towards breast cancer, but most physicians still don’t test for them. We need to make sure that we use all the science available to us, and set up a system that ensures that all patients get the appropriate screening tests at the appropriate time intervals. If we did that, 90% of patients diagnosed with cancer could expect improved outcomes.
Dr. Carmona is the Vice Chairman of Canyon Ranch, and President of the Canyon Ranch Institute.
Next post: Dr. Satcher on health disparities in cancer treatment.
*See the National Call To Action On Cancer Prevention and Survivorship*This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
July 25th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Expert Interviews, Health Policy
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“The gap between what we know and what we do is lethal.”
— Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D.
I attended a press conference today announcing the National Call to Action on Cancer Prevention and Survivorship. Lance Armstrong and 4 former US Surgeons General (Carmona, Satcher, Elders, and Novello) took turns outlining what they saw as the most critical aspects of advancing the war on cancer. I was offered 1:1 interviews with three of the four doctors, thanks to the press conference sponsors, The Canyon Ranch Institute, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. These interviews will follow in my next blog post.
Each speaker made a compelling and passionate plea for redoubling our efforts on the war on cancer (first declared in 1971 by Richard Nixon). Some of the key points included:
Lance Armstrong called for the FDA to regulate the tobacco industry, for the government to increase funding to the National Cancer Institute, and for access for all Americans to the same level of cancer care.
Dr. Richard Carmona called for culturally relevant preventive health education, for programs to decrease smoking rates and improve diet and exercise among Americans.
Dr. David Satcher called on Americans to act on what we already know. “Seventy percent of smokers want to quit” he said. The trick is to get them to follow through.
Dr. Joycelyn Elders emphasized the unacceptable quality gulf between healthcare for minorities and the poor versus the wealthy. She said, “poverty is the most potent carcinogen.”
Dr. Antonia Novello focused on the challenges that cancer patients face in navigating the healthcare system. She called for congress to pass a bill requiring Medicare to pay for coordination of care for cancer patients. She envisions a culturally sensitive, personalized service that will facilitate record keeping, improve therapy compliance, and help the patient to manage their care more effectively.
I was most intrigued with Dr. Novello’s arguments, since I’ve been interested in the concept of creating an “OnStar” navigation system for healthcare for several years. The cancer patient population is arguably the sub-group of highest need. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out in congress.
In my next post I’ll offer interview notes from my 1:1 meetings, so stay tuned!This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
July 22nd, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Uncategorized
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Not to be outdone by the exciting July 29th DC medblogger conference, or Medgadget’s new Medpolitics site, Scienceblogs (the sister site of Seed Magazine) is sponsoring a meet-and-greet on August 9th in New York City. If you’d like to attend – and meet some of your favorite science bloggers in person – please send an email to: nycmeetup@scienceblogs.com
Beer and swag, science and reason, talented writers, and my favorite city… All just one Chinatown bus ride away.
Hope to see you there!
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
July 22nd, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Policy, Medblogger Shout Outs
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My friends at Medgadget.com let me know about a new initiative that they started: an open blog site for US Physicians who wish to express their policy opinions online. Healthcare reform is championed primarily by politicians with no medical training – so they really need help to understand the issues from doctors in the trenches. Just as Barack Obama and John McCain are crafting their foreign policy in light of information they glean from military personnel on the front lines, I hope they will also inform their healthcare policy by listening carefully to the frontline caregivers in medicine. Let them know what you think!
From Medgadget’s press release:
We are very proud to unveil a new web service called Medpolitics.com, a blogging site open to US physicians to opine on healthcare, public health, politics of medicine, and the state of our profession. The time seems perfect considering that healthcare is such a hot debate topic, and many doctors feel that we should have a stronger voice in the debate. We figured we know a thing or two about blogging and healthcare. So why not build a service where doctors write their political thoughts and others read them and comment? We hope that one day politicians, policy makers, news makers, and others will be checking it out to see what the doctors actually think on the important medical policy issues.
So we registered the domain, installed a user-friendly publishing software, and gave it some testing. The site is now ready to go, all without any significant investments (except for our time) or outside funding. In other words, 100% independent political network for doctors.
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
July 22nd, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Uncategorized
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Dr. Allen Roberts, Emergency Medicine physician and pillar of the medical blog establishment (he won the award for best medical blog in 2004) is hosting the 200th edition of Grand Rounds. Grand Rounds is a weekly summary of the best of the medical blogosphere, hosted by a different medical blogger each week. If you haven’t discovered it yet, please look out for your weekly edition.
Dr. Roberts uses a delightful economy of words in this fast paced summary – and he included my interview with Bob Schieffer about bladder cancer.
Please check it out.
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
