September 21st, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Alzheimer's Test Assertion, Correction In Health Reporting, Gary Schwitzer, Health Journalism, HealthNewsReview.org, Inaccurate Health Reporting, Neurology, Responsible Reporting, Science Reporting, The New York Times
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I have a lot of catching up to do after being in Europe for just 4 days. But I can’t let this one go by without comment. In fact, this issue was one of the first ones raised by German journalists I met with in Dortmund this week. Don’t think people around the world don’t notice the good AND the bad in American health/medical/science journalism — especially by The New York Times.
The Times took a long time (five weeks) to comment on what critics — including me, Paul Raeburn, Charlie Petit and many other journalists (including Times’ ombudsman Arthur Brisbane) — wrote about Gina Kolata’s August 10 piece on a “100% accurate” Alzheimer’s test. But [on September 16th] the paper published a correction. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
September 21st, 2010 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, Opinion
Tags: Dr. Edwin Leap, Greenville News, Mental Health, Mental Health Crisis, Mental Health System, Mental Illness, Psychiatry and Psychology, South Carolina
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This is my column in [the September 17th] Greenville News. It’s a follow-up to a recent column I wrote on the mental health “crisis” in America, as seen in our emergency rooms.
My last column addressed the unfortunate truth of the overwhelmed mental health system in South Carolina, and indeed in much of the U.S. While I lament the fiscal condition of our mental health system, and while I feel for those who truly need the help we are often powerless to supply, I would be a poor observer if I didn’t report the truth. And the second truth we must face is that much of what we call mental illness is neither truly “mental,” nor even “illness.”
Let me first state the obvious: The brain is an organ. It is incalculably complex and truly a wonder of design and engineering. But, it remains an organ despite its wonderful capacities. Therefore, it requires energy, its support structures feel pain, it may be injured and swell, it can bleed and parts of it can die when its owner has a stroke.
Sometimes the dysfunction of this fantastic organ, or of the chemicals which course through it, is manifest[ed] as mental illness. In certain cases, medications can restore the brain to normal function. Therefore, I am not suggesting that true mental illness is wicked, or reflects character flaws. I have met too many sweet, confused schizophrenics to believe either of those things. I am suggesting that too often we allow character flaws, unpleasant personalities, remorse over bad choices — and even, yes, wickedness — to masquerade as mental illness. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
September 21st, 2010 by BobDoherty in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: ACP Advocate, American College Of Physicians, Bob Doherty, Dartmouth Atlas, Family Medicine, Fixing Primary Care, General Medicine, Internal Medicine, More Primary Care Doctors, Patient-Centered Medical Home, Primary Care Crisis, Primary Care Oversold, Primary Care Shortage, Wall Street Journal
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Citing a new study by the Dartmouth Atlas, the Wall Street Journal’s health blog provocatively asks: “Has the notion of ‘access’ to primary care been oversold?”
The Dartmouth researchers found “that there is no simple relationship between the supply of physicians and access to primary care.” That is, they found that having a greater supply of primary care physicians in a community doesn’t mean that the community necessarily has better access to primary care. Some areas of the country with fewer primary care physicians per population do better on access than other areas with more primary care physicians.
The researchers also report that the numbers of family physicians is more positively associated with better access than the numbers of internists, although they call the association “not strong.” Although both general internists and family physicians are counted as primary care clinicians, “in [regions] with a higher supply of family physicians, beneficiaries were more likely to have at least one annual primary care visit. In [regions] with a higher supply of general internists, fewer beneficiaries had a primary care visit on average.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
September 20th, 2010 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Barriers to Weight Loss, Behavior Change, Changing Patient Behavior, Doctor-Patient Communication, Family Medicine, General Medicine, HBM, Health Belief Model, How To Lose Weight, How To Talk To Patients, Internal Medicine, Obesity, Overweight, Primary Care, Talking to Patients
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According to Marshall Becker, PhD, MPH, a one-time professor of mine and prime mover behind the Health Belief Model (HBM), four things must be in place for health behavior change to occur. I am paraphrasing here:
- A person has to know that they have a particular health condition.
- A person has to believe that having said health condition is bad.
- A person must perceive the benefits of behavior change to outweigh the difficulties of behavior change.
- There must be a “call to action” to spark the change.
Absent any one of these steps and the likelihood that behavior change will occur is diminished. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
September 20th, 2010 by IsisTheScientist in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Research
Tags: General Medicine, Invasive Physiological Measurement Techniques, Isis the Scientist, Medical Studies, Non-Invasive Measures, Physiology, Pulse Oximeter, Testing Methods, Vitals
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One of the disturbing trends I have been observing in physiology is the tendency to move away from many of the gold standard, invasive measurements classically described in the scientific literature to non-invasive measures which may or may not accurately reflect the parameter of interest.
One of these non-invasive measurements (which is not used in any of the manuscripts on my desk) that has become the bane of my existence is to use the saturation of hemoglobin in arterial blood (SPO2) as a surrogate for the partial pressure of arterial blood (PO2). SPO2 is measured with a device called a pulse oximeter.
Figure 1: A fingertip pulse oximeter. This device indicates that this individuals arterial hemoglobin is 98 percent saturated and his heart rate is 73 beats/min. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess*
