August 15th, 2011 by Berci in Opinion
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Recently, I’ve had an interview with a national newspaper and the woman who performed the interview told me she was surprised that I seemed to be the first doctor in her life who was happy about patients using the internet. Well, she surprised me with this statement as I’ve never thought about that before. But she must be right. There are many doctors who get upset when they find out the patient tried to find information online. They are frustrated as they don’t even know how to use these online tools and have no idea how to help the patients in this perspective.
Myself, I’m pretty much happy about it. I love to hear patients Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
August 1st, 2011 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in News, Opinion
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Can we teach empathy to the next generation of physicians? The University of South Florida Health thinks so and they’re putting it on the line this week with the launch of the SELECT program, a new curriculum intended to “put empathy, communication and creativity back into doctoring.”
The SELECT (Scholarly Excellence. Leadership Experiences. Collaborative Training.) program will offer 19 select students unique training in leadership development as well as the scholarly tools needed to become physician leaders and catalysts for change. During their first week on campus, instead of the old-style medical school tradition of heading to the gross anatomy lab, SELECT students are immersed in leadership training centered in empathy and other core principles of patient-centered care.
The hope is that this program will prepare the next generation of departmental chairmen, CMOs and physician thought leaders through more intense, non-traditional preparation.
Students will Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
July 29th, 2011 by EvanFalchukJD in Health Policy, Research
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Sometimes you need a published study to tell you what should be obvious in the first place.
This time, researchers have discovered that:
When physicians have more personalized discussions with their patients and encourage them to take a more active role in their health, both doctor and patient have more confidence that they reached a correct diagnosis and a good strategy to improve the patient’s health.
Really?
But wait, there’s more. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at See First Blog*
July 26th, 2011 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Opinion
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I can’t help but think that as time passes we’ll forget about how much medicine has changed with the introduction of the Internet. We’re witnessing a transition that hasn’t been seen in generations. We live with the end result but the memory of how we got here is fading quickly. Like any kind of cultural shift, once we’ve arrived it’s hard to remember what it was like along the way.
How did patients think before the information revolution? And how did it go down when patients began to search? How specifically did information clash with the old model of doctor and patient and how did we deal with it? There are stories here that need to be told. I think the real stories are in the small details of what went down between doctors and patients. But as early adopters, most of us spend our time looking forward, not back. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
July 22nd, 2011 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Opinion
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“I don’t have the time…I don’t get reimbursed for that.” This is an all too common refrain from primary care physicians and practice managers when ever the subject of improving physician-patient communications comes up.
I get it. Primary care physicians in particular are under tremendous pressure to produce. Just imagine…physicians in small primary care practices spend about 3.5 hours/week just on dealing with insurance-related paperwork. Then there’s keeping up with recommended treatment guidelines, journals, and IT issues and routine staffing issues…not to mention routine patient care, much of which they in fact do not get paid for. Physicians do have it rough right now.
But Doctors Can Sometimes Be Their Own Worst Enemies
Currently, in just about every State, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*