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Another Law To Ensure Doctors Do Right By Their Patients

Recently the [state of] New York signed a law requiring hospitals and doctors to discuss breast reconstruction options with the patient prior to her undergoing cancer surgery. It troubled me that this law was needed. Is it not the duty of the physicians and surgeons to educate the patient on the options available? 

We need to make sure the patient and their family know of the treatment options which may vary depending on the diagnosis and stage: Radiation, chemotherapy, surgery (lumpectomy, mastectomy, axillary dissection) — a combination of treatments.

Even if the patient and her physicians don’t chose to do immediate reconstruction, isn’t the discussion and information part of the discussion? At least inform the patient of the option.

Do we physicians and surgeons need another law to ensure we do right by our patients? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

“Step Away From The Chart Or I’ll Be Forced To Give You Chemo”

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

Survey: How Would You Define “Health 2.0?”

My friend and fellow blogger Lucien Engelen asked the health community to help define what Health 2.0 exactly means through an online survey:

After our systematic review about the definition of Health 2.0, one of our next steps will be sorting out what “the crowd” thinks that has to be part of a definition of Health 2.0. For this purpose we’ve set up a little questionnaire that you could fill in below.

To make the crowd as big as possible, we have also made it available to put on your own blog or website. We would encourage you to do this and inspire others to do the same.

You may remember that Lucien and his collegues published a review about the definitions of Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0 currently available.

*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*

Are You Cut Out For Primary Care?

If you’re considering primary care medicine as a career someday and want some great insights into what it takes to become a good one, Dr. Rob clarifies the personality type and tolerances required.

So what does it take to be a specialist? Exactly the same. Except the part where he describes a possible need for outward social status and only working on left fingers.

Just realize that those extra years of training that we not-so-specialists endure are really there just so we can completely forget most of what we once knew and how to fill out discharge paperwork.

-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*

Okay With Your Surgeon Tweeting During Your Operation?

Why are so many stories so unquestioning about these runaway surgical Twitter practices? Just look at this frame grab from a Google search showing all of the stories (so far) on one hospital team’s surgical Twitter exploits. One story stated:

“Senior hand fellows…when not actively involved in the surgery, sat at a laptop just outside the operating suite and tweeted real-time updates during the procedure, according to a hospital press release. According to the Twitter feed, expert teams of hand surgeons rotated in and out of the operating room throughout the surgery.”

Oh, phew, their hands were tweeting when their hands weren’t operating! I might rather that my surgeons — even when not actively involved in the operation and when rotating out of the OR — would just rest their digits and not flex them digitally. But what an old-fashioned guy I am.

hand xplant twittering.jpg

*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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