Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary

Latest Posts

How Can We Interpret The Conflicting Messages From The Media Regarding Research?

I’m choosing to blog about a HealthDay story headlined, “British Study Suggests Mammograms Do More Harm Than Good,” rather than do one of our criteria-driven systematic story reviews because our criteria don’t address the bigger picture.

And that bigger picture is this:

In a criteria-driven, systematic story review of another HealthDay story about a Dutch study this week headlined, “Mammograms Cut Risk of Breast Cancer Death by Half, Study Finds,” our review team commented: Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health News Review*

Developing Priorities In The Field Of Genomics And Public Health

Text: 2012-2017 Priorities for Public Health Genomics Stakeholder Consultation|Priorities Conference Report|September 2011  In June 2011, the CDC Office of Public Health Genomics launched a community wide consultation process to develop priorities for the field of public health genomics in the next 5 years. This process was initiated as part of strategic visioning for integrating the emerging tools of genomics into practice and assuring the success of these new tools in improving population health. The process was conducted at a time of a widening gap between the rapid scientific advances in genomics and their impact on improving population health.   The University of Michigan Center for Public Health and Community Genomics and Genetic Alliance spearheaded an effort to seek, collate and synthesize advice and recommendations from numerous stakeholders and constituents. The effort culminated in a workshop conducted on September 14, 2011 in Bethesda, Maryland. The results of the consultation, discussions and deliberations are summarized in a report published by the University of Michigan. Highlights of the recommendations are summarized here but readers should consult the full report.  Some of the recommendations include:

To improve public health genomics education: Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Genomics and Health Impact Blog*

Fecal DNA Testing: Is This The Future Of Colon Cancer Screening?

It’s Saturday morning, and I’m in an undisclosed location drinking a fabulous cup of coffee while turning the pages of The New York Times, knowing that ink and newsprint will be vanishing too soon. Yes, I do have an iPad now, but I haven’t figured out how to blog on it. Any suggestions?

Buried in the first section of the paper is an article on stool, which in my view as a gastro specialist, should have merited front page placement. Yes, we all know the adage, ‘one’s man’s trash is another man’s treasure’, but stool – as in excrement – should be prized by everyone. Perhaps, as a gastroenterologist, I have a jaundiced view on this issue, which explains my dyspeptic reaction.

All Whistleblower posts have an accompanying image, and I wonder what visual would be appropriate here.  I opted against my first choice, and choose instead a photo of our beloved Labrador Retriever, Shoshie, of blessed memory.

The Times reported a new program to Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at MD Whistleblower*

The Fixation On A Flawed Cancer Screening Test

In the face of accumulating evidence and a U.S. Preventive Services Task Force finding that PSA screening for prostate cancer does more harm than good, the most frequent response I hear from physicians who continue to defend the test is that PSA is all we have, and that until a better test is developed, it would be “unethical” to not offer men some way to detect prostate cancer at an asymptomatic stage. (However, these physicians for the most part don’t question the ethics of not offering women screening for ovarian cancer, which a recent randomized trial concluded provides no mortality benefit but causes considerable harms from diagnosis and treatment.)

I’m currently reading historian Stephen Ambrose’s dual biography of Oglala Sioux leader Crazy Horse and Civil War cavalry general George Armstrong Custer, whose troops were routed by the Sioux at the famous Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. One premise of the book is that the same aggressive instincts that served Custer so well during the Civil War Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Common Sense Family Doctor*

Will Doctors Actually Change Their Recommendations Given The New Cancer Screening Guidelines?

Cancer. Just the word is scary. Actually, that’s the problem. Once you say that word, the average American will do anything — ANYTHING! — to just get it out of my body!!! Whether or not they have it, whatever the actual numerical chances of their ever developing it, no chance for detecting or treating it should ever be neglected. EVER! Ask any Med-mal lawyer. Better, ask any twelve average people off the street (i.e., the ones who are going to wind up on a jury). “The doctor didn’t do every possible test/procedure, and now the patient has CANCER? String him up!”

Hence we have the new guidelines for PSA testing. (Given that many patients with prostate cancer have normal PSAs and lots of patients with high PSAs don’t have prostate cancer, it doesn’t seem semantically correct to call it “prostate cancer screening”.) Surprise! Turns out that not only does PSA testing not save lives, but that urologists don’t really care. Certainly not enough to stop recommending PSAs to just about everyone they can get their hands on.

Nor do breast surgeons have any intention of modifying their recommendations, not only in light of new understandings of the limitations of mammography, but even as Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Dinosaur*

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

See all book reviews »

Commented - Most Popular Articles