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Is Lack Of Kindness The Greatest Barrier To Healthcare Reform?

Ancient people couldn’t understand why solar eclipses happened, so they looked for explanations that fit what they saw:

A recurring and pervasive embodiment of the eclipse was a dragon, or a demon, who devours the sun. The ancient Chinese would produce great noise and commotion during an eclipse, banging on pots and drums to frighten away the dragon.

They weren’t crazy, although if we accept their explanation, their solutions seem pretty illogical.  I mean, would a dragon big and powerful enough to eat the sun really be scared away by people banging on pots and drums?

I guess I don’t understand the skittishness of giant sun-devouring dragons.

But this the trouble.  When you come at a problem with a faulty premise — and insist on keeping that premise — it leads you down some very strange paths. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at See First Blog*

The Future Of Medicine Is Primary Care

The current generation of medical students are not choosing primary care and instead are flocking to specialty care medicine in droves. Unlike decades ago when the best and brightest often went into internal medicine, the vast majority of students opt for dermatology, radiology, anesthesiology, and ophthalmology. Reasons for doing so include better predictable schedules, work-life balance, and compensation.

While I understand that proponents for more primary care doctors use other reasons to increase the primary care workforce, namely decrease the healthcare cost curve and improve health outcomes, medical students today need more compelling and practical reasons to do primary care.

I’ll give three. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis*

Will Healthcare Reform Mandates Punish The Poor?

A reader wrote;” I am getting tired of you telling me how bad the healthcare reform bill is.”

I am tired of writing about the bill. I feel compelled to try to clearly explain the harmful potential of the bill to an unsuspecting public.

Most Americans agree the country needs healthcare reform.

Many intelligent people believe President Obama is on the right track. They believe he is going to provide universal healthcare coverage, affordable healthcare cost, and improve the quality of medical care.

Few in the mainstream media are discussing the real impact of President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Plan.

President Obama cannot accomplish his goals with this bill. He is going to increase federal spending and taxes for every American’s not just the wealthy. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*

Electronic Medical Records Don’t Reduce Costs Or Improve Patient Care… Yet

Have electronic medical records made a difference in patient care?

According to a study looking at digital medical record adoption of 3,000 hospitals, electronic records have made little difference in cost or quality of care.

That’s discouraging, considering that the government is investing billions of dollars into the technology.

Very few physicians use electronic record systems effectively. For instance, many are simply scanning paper records into a computer, which provides minimal benefit. It’s difficult to track quality improvement data doing that. The problem is further compounded by the archaic interfaces that the current generation of EMRs have, which is akin to a user interface circa Windows 95.

It’s no wonder that most doctors find electronic medical systems actually slows them down. The next generation of systems needs to focus on facilitating the doctor-patient encounter, rather than being an impediment. Taking a few lessons from Google, and improving the user interface would be a good start.

Only then can EMRs realize the potential relied upon by the government and health reformers.

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

Hidden Costs In The Healthcare Reform Bills: How To Fake Budget Neutrality

President Obama said he will not sign a healthcare reform bill that was not budget neutral. You can view this statement at 3.50 minutes into this video clip.

The only way that can happen is if the healthcare expenses in both bills are hidden, unrealistic expense estimates are or expenses deflected to other areas in the budget. The Senate and House bill do both. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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