February 16th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Opinion
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Doctors have been coming under increasing scrutiny for their relationships with pharmaceutical companies.
Many hospitals and medical schools have outright banned any involvement of their physician staff with drug companies. This isn’t a contentious issue most of the time.
But a recent case at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital raised some eyebrows. Apparently, an asthma specialist was so dependent on drug company money, that he chose to quit the hospital instead. According to the Boston Globe, “Out of thousands of US doctors hired by drug-maker GlaxoSmithKline to talk about its products, [this physician] was the highest paid during a three-month period last year, the company recently disclosed: He made $99,375 for giving 40 talks to other physicians last April, May, and June, almost one every other day.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
February 12th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Opinion
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Currently, the most important test prospective medical students take is the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT.
Despite what schools say, an MCAT score holds tremendous weight, more so than a brilliant essay or a stellar recommendation letter.
In an interesting New York Times piece, Pauline Chen wonders whether that score itself leads to a great physician. She discusses an article showing that students’ cognitive traits may be equally important.
Although students go through several interviews to get an assessment of their personality, these are rarely standardized, and certainly not quantified. It’s important to know, for instance, how a student responds to stress: “If I know someone is not just stress-prone, but stress-prone at the 95th percentile rather than the 65th. I would have to ask myself if that person could handle the stress of medicine.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
February 1st, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Opinion
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A recent study suggests that doctors may put off holding end of life care discussions that involve subjects like advance directives, hospice or site of death.
Recommendations suggest that physicians hold these conversations when patients have about a year to live, but the data show those guidelines aren’t being followed.
Why? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
January 28th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, News, Quackery Exposed, Research
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Most people automatically filter out spam e-mails, or delete them without ever opening them up.
But a surprising number of people actually take the time to read them, which is probably why annoying spam will continue unabated. From the New York Times’ Well, Tara Parker-Pope writes points an interesting study looking at who actually read health-related spam e-mails.
Looking at college students who were overweight, a study showed that an astounding 42 percent opened unsolicited e-mails touting weight loss products, and 19 percent actually ordered the product. And, perhaps more concerning, among those where were normal weight, 5 percent still bought what the spam was selling.
The effectiveness of spam e-mails, in this admittedly small study at least, certainly surprised me. I remember reading somewhere that it takes a success rate of 1 in 100,000 to make it worthwhile to a spam marketer.
But if they’re achieving success rates like these, it’s no wonder that the degree of spam, estimated to be 73 percent of all e-mails, will only rise.
That’s depressing.
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
January 21st, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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It’s no secret that without a stronger primary care foundation, the current reform efforts are unlikely to be successful. If anything, it will only delay the inevitable.
I wrote last month that one discussed solution, adding more residency slots, won’t help: it would simply perpetuate the disproportionate specialist:primary care ratio.
A recent op-ed in The New York Times expands on that theme. The authors suggest that not only does primary care need to be promoted, specialist slots should be limited. Simply building more medical schools, or adding more residency slots, without such restrictions will only add to the number of specialists.
Already, many primary care residency slots go unfilled – what’s the point of adding more?
You have to solve the root cause that shifts more students away from primary care: disproportionately low pay, disrespect that starts early in medical training, and poor working conditions where bureaucracy interferes with the doctor-patient relationship.
Until each of those issues are addressed, simply more spending money to produce more doctors simply isn’t going to work.
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
