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The Japanese Healthcare System: Same Crisis, Different Country

Japan is completely different from the United States.  But it’s exactly the same.

I’m talking about health care, of course.

Japan is a country of about 130 million people, and one of the richest countries on Earth.  They enjoy a system of universal health care coverage, and some of the best doctors in the world.  But there are problems.

The country is is straining under the twin burdens of an aging population and rising health care costs.  At some point in the next two decades, retirees will outnumber active workers.   Medical expenses per person have almost doubled since the 1990s and continue to rise.   In a country with little immigration and low birth rates, it’s a bad combination. Read more »

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

New Camera As Good As The Human Eye In Color Perception

PaPaLaB Co Ltd, a Japanese firm, has announced their development of the “YC-3300,” a camera they claim can capture the exact same colors as seen by the human eye. The camera is designed for archiving and medical applications. While cameras with similar technology currently exist, they are too large and expensive to be practical. The YC-3300 is currently priced at $140,477, with more affordable models in the pipeline.

Technology like this will be crucial with cameras in medicine taking an ever larger role in research, education, and diagnosis.

(Hat Tip: Engadget)

Read more at Tech-On

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

Models Of Healthcare In The Developed World


I heard an interview with T.R.Reid and can’t wait to read his book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. He traveled the world and compared how developed countries manage health care. He makes the point that all other developed countries have universal coverage. No-one is left out.

He found four basic systems (some named after their founders):
Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

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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