When Doctors Consider A Career Change
What awaits some physicians who decide to quit medicine:
Source: A Cartoon Guide to Becoming a Doctor
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
Latest Posts
The Value Of Social Media For Patients, Doctors And Nurses
A patient apologized to me for asking so many questions. “There’s no need to apologize,” I said to the patient, “It’s wonderful that you have so many questions concerning your healthcare.” I mentioned to her that she is an “empowered and engaged patient,” and that’s a good thing.
It’s no secret that health consumers are turning to the Internet for health information.
In a recent article from MediaPost News, Gavin O’Malley writes that, according to new a study by Epsilon Strategic & Analytic Consulting Group, “40% of online consumers use social media for health information — reading or posting content — while the frequency of engagement varies widely. According to the study, individuals who use healthcare social media fall into two broad groups: the 80% who are highly engaged patients, and take active roles in health management; and the 20% who lack confidence to play an active role in their own health.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
Examine A Hand, Foreshadow A Future
Back to the subject at hand.
To those who are relatively new to this blog, one of the most popular…uh…tolerated series of posts has been my series on the physical exam. If you haven’t done so already, you may want to go back and read the posts to get in the proper mindset (or destroy enough brain cells).
Astute readers will note that doctors are not the only professionals to examine the hand.
Long before we knew anything about carpal tunnel syndrome or the thenar eminence, we had Madam Linda and her cohorts looking at the hand for signs of what the future will bring for the individual that happens to be connected to the hand in question. Just as stars and planets can have a peculiar interest as to whether a person will run into money, the lines on a person’s hand can foreshadow a person’s future. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
Low-Dose Naltrexone: Medical Revolution Or Pseudoscience?
On SBM we have documented the many and various ways that science is abused in the pursuit of health (or making money from those who are pursuing health). One such method is to take a new, but reasonable, scientific hypothesis and run with it, long past the current state of the evidence. We see this with the many bogus stem cell therapy clinics that are popping up in parts of the world with lax regulation.
This type of medical pseudoscience is particularly challenging to deal with, because there is a scientific paper trail that seems to support many of the claims of proponents. The claims themselves may have significant plausibility, and parts of the claims may in fact be true. Efforts to educate the public about such treatments are frustrated by the mainstream media’s lazy tendency to discuss every study as if it were the definitive last word on a topic, and to site individual experts as if they represent the consensus of scientific opinion.
Recent claims made for low-dose naltrexone (LDN) fit nicely into this model –- a medical intervention with interesting research, but in a preliminary phase that does not justify clinical use. And yet proponents talk about it as if it’s a medical revolution. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
Despite Uncertainty, Why Doctors Should Hang In There
There is discontent in the house of medicine. So many physicians struggle. They seem to wade through uncertainty every day — uncertain about diagnoses, about pain, about disposition. We find ourselves uncertain about our jobs, our futures, our finances.
The consultants we call are uncertain about their practices and whether they can remain viable in the coming years as medicine evolves into something we may find unrecognizable.
Some days, as I enter my 17th year of practice, I don’t know if I can bear to walk around our little department for 10 or 20 more years, like some gerbil on an exercise wheel. I am uncertain if I can bear the weight of more entitlements, more confabulated stories, more regulations, and manufactured drama. I wonder if I can endure decades more of circadian assaults on my brain. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
