April 6th, 2011 by DrRich in Health Policy, Humor, Opinion
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In an earlier post, DrRich offered several potential strategies for doctors and patients to consider should healthcare reformers ultimately succeed in their efforts to make it illegal for Americans to seek medical care outside the auspices of Obamacare. To those readers who persist in thinking that DrRich is particularly paranoid in worrying about such a thing, he refers you to his prior work carefully documenting the efforts the Central Authority has already made in limiting the prerogatives of individual Americans within the healthcare system, and reminds you that in any society where social justice is the overriding concern, individual prerogatives such as these must be criminalized. Indeed, whether individuals will retain the right to spend their own money on their own healthcare is ultimately the real battle. The outcome of this battle will determine much more than merely what kind of healthcare system we will end up with.
DrRich, despite his paranoia on the matter, is a long-term optimist, and believes that the American spirit will ultimately prevail. So, to advance this happy result DrRich (in the previously mentioned post) graciously offered several creative options that could be employed to establish a useful Black Market in healthcare, which will allow individuals to exercise their healthcare-autonomy against the day when such autonomy again becomes legal. His suggestions included offshore, state-of-the-art medical centers on old aircraft carriers; combination Casino/Hospitals on the sovereign soil of Native American reservations; and cutting-edge medical centers just south of the border (which would have the the added benefit of encouraging our government to finally close the borders to illegal crossings once and for all).
As entertaining as it might be to imagine such solutions, a readily available, though much more mundane, option exists today, which is to say, medical tourism. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
April 6th, 2011 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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So I have a Droid. I purchased it in July, not long after taking my old flip-phone for an oceanic bath at Hilton Head, SC. I waffled for a long time. In fact, I almost purchased a Casio phone that was marketed as water and impact resistant. ‘Mil-spec,’ was the phrase used…a phrase which appeals to me as a one-time Air-Guard flight surgeon. What it meant to me was, ‘you can’t hurt it.’
Still, I was attracted by medical applications and the assorted other cool things a Droid can do. I mean, my old phone didn’t have a Magic 8 Ball, for crying out loud! More to the point, my old phone didn’t have Epocrates, or the Emergency Medicine Residents Association Guide to Antibiotic Therapy. It lacked a flashlight, an mp-3 player, a protractor and a scientific calculator. (It also weighed a fraction of my Droid, but that’s what belts are for). On my old phone, I couldn’t have taken a photo of an ECG, turned it into a pdf file, and e-mailed it to our fax-impaired cardiologist. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
April 6th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in Health Policy, News
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A study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that “that men in their seventies had prostate cancer screening nearly twice as often as men in their early fifties, who are more likely to benefit from prostate cancer detection and treatment.” An American Society for Clinical Oncology news release includes this quote:
“Our findings show a high rate of elderly and sometimes ill men being inappropriately screened for prostate cancer. We’re concerned these screenings may prompt cancer treatment among elderly men who ultimately have a very low likelihood of benefitting the patient and paradoxically can cause more harm than good,” said senior author Scott Eggener, MD, assistant professor of surgery at the University of Chicago. “We were also surprised to find that nearly three-quarters of men in their fifties were not screened within the past year. These results emphasize the need for greater physician interaction and conversations about the merits and limitations of prostate cancer screening for men of all ages.”
The US Preventive Services Task Force states that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of prostate cancer screening in men younger than age 75 years, and it recommends against screening for prostate cancer in men age 75 years or older.
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
April 6th, 2011 by Linda Burke-Galloway, M.D. in Health Tips, True Stories
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When we hear about maternal death, we immediately think of a third world country but in reality, 2 to 3 women die every day in the U.S. from pregnancy and childbirth. Unfortunately, African American women are affected disproportionately and are four times more likely to die than anyone else. The tragedy is that at least half of these deaths are preventable.
In her article, Special Report: Black Women Die Nearly Four Times the Rate of White Women From Pregnancy Complications, Rita Henley Jensen, describes the dilemma of the acting chief of the maternal and infant unit of CDC, Dr. William Callaghan. Callaghan can’t sleep at night because he wants to know why pregnancy is more dangerous for U.S. African American women.
During my residency training, I witnessed a maternal death. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway*
April 5th, 2011 by Medgadget in Health Tips
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Apple iPads are taking the clinical world by storm, but they’re not exactly built for a busy environment full of liquids, dirty hands, and pathogens. The Chef Sleeve is a plastic wrapping originally designed to help cooks prevent their iPads from getting hit by a splash of this and a dash of that. The plastic is compatible with the touch screen, provides basic protection, and won’t require you to sterilize it before bringing it home from the hospital. At $20 for 25 sleeves, your new baby can get the basic protection it deserves.
Product page: Chef Sleeve…
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
