June 21st, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
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Headlines every day in the New York Daily News are luring men in as part of a mass prostate cancer screening campaign that the American Cancer Society not only does not endorse, but its chief medical officer recommends against. Yet the paper brags that it’s beginning its second decade of this non-evidence-based campaign. Sample headlines:
• Doctors urge New York men to take advantage of free, city-wide PSA testing
• What you don’t know can kill you. Get a FREE prostate cancer test. It can save your life
• Bring dad in for FREE prostate cancer test across the city on Father’s Day
and
• Don’t skip the PSA test! My prostate cancer is treatable because simple test caught it early (written by a Daily News staffer). Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
June 21st, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, News, Opinion
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Should you friend your doctor on Facebook? It’s a question that’s gaining increasing relevance as Facebook increases its social networking dominance. I’ve touched upon the issue in the past. So has the New England Journal of Medicine.
Washington, DC, physician Katherine Chretian gives her take on the issue in a recent USA Today op-ed. She is an expert of the Facebook-medicine intersection, having authored a JAMA study on the issue.
She says, no, doctors should not be friending their patients:
Having a so-called dual relationship with a patient — that is, a financial, social or professional relationship in addition to the therapeutic relationship — can lead to serious ethical issues and potentially impair professional judgment. We need professional boundaries to do our job well.
Furthermore, there’s the little matter of patient privacy and HIPAA. I wasn’t aware of this, but simply becoming Facebook friends with patients can infringe upon uncertain ground. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
June 21st, 2010 by BobDoherty in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
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Friday, the Senate — in a rare stroke of bipartisanship — voted by unanimous consent to reverse the 21 percent SGR cut and provide positive updates of 2.2 percent through November 2010. The legislation is fully paid for by offsets in other spending programs.
Unfortunately, though, the cut remains in effect and claims are being processed at reduced rates, because the House of Representatives has recessed for the weekend and won’t be back until Tuesday. At that time, I expect that the House will pass the Senate’s six-month reprieve and Medicare will make doctors “whole” for the period of time that the cut was in effect.
Not that any of this is a cause for celebration. In the meantime, claims still are being paid at reduced rates, creating havoc for physicians and patients. Kicking the can down the road for another six months doesn’t get us any closer to a permanent solution. It doesn’t lower the overall cost, now estimated at over $200 billion, to dig out of the SGR hole. It doesn’t provide the stability and reliability that physicians and patients need to view Medicare as a trusted partner. It does mean that we will be back again, this summer and fall, fighting to forestall another double-digit cut. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
June 20th, 2010 by DrCharles in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion, Research, True Stories
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The bilious oil hemorrhaging from the bowels of the Earth, coupled with the usual stressors of life, makes me feel sad and pessimistic of late. And while I’m still pretty sure that ignorance, intolerance, and our polluting routines will be our ruin, I also search for ways to retain optimism and hope. Amid the constant erosion there are basic roots that hold life together. If you share the belief that life is fundamentally absurd, then life is truly what you make it. Are there small steps proven to make us happier?
Psychology often concerns itself with helping ailing people get back to a neutral ground, but the field of positive psychology aims to do more. University of Pennsylvania psychologist Dr. Martin Seligman, positive psychology’s most renowned proponent, once said: “I realized that my profession was half-baked. It wasn’t enough for us to nullify disabling conditions and get to zero. We needed to ask, ‘What are the enabling conditions that make human beings flourish?’”
To that end, research on happiness, optimism, positive emotions and healthy character traits has been increasing in psychology. Some surprising results challenge our assumptions, such as the fact that once basic needs are met, money does not increase happiness. Neither do high education or high IQ. Older people tend to be happier than young. The sunny weather in California and Florida does not make people happier than those living in colder and cloudier climes. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Examining Room of Dr. Charles*
June 19th, 2010 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion, True Stories
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We all know about “doctor time.” No matter how hard I try, the clock seems to out sprint me. Morning rounds in the hospital go longer than expected, a colleague stops you with a question, a son forgot his lunch, or something else. The list is long.
In fact, as a very well-educated patient, it seems that the doctors I choose for myself and family are even later than I. It seems that most good doctors have long waits. A coincidence?
However accepted “doctor time” is in the office or hospital, it doesn’t work the same in the bike racing world. In the land of genetically endowed androids, the clock waits for no one in particular. It turns out that our pizza-sponsored team has a few doctors who run on “doctor time” in real life. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
