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Free Aneurysm Screening: Just Another Kmart “Blue Light Special?”

Kmart, Medtronic, and a bunch of specialty medical groups are sponsoring a campaign called “Find the AAAnswers” — the “AAA” standing for abdominal aortic aneurysm.

It’s clever marketing for Kmart’s pharmacy business, since the screenings are being offered throughout the Fall at more than 900 Kmart pharmacies. And it’s not bad business for the specialty medical groups, either, as Larry Husten wrote on his Cardiobrief blog:

…the expenses of the program and the coalition are entirely underwritten by Medtronic, which sells abdominal stent grafts used to repair AAAs, and the members of the coalition include organizations like the Peripheral Vascular Surgical Society, the Society for Vascular Surgery, and the Society for Vascular Ultrasound, whose members may derive a significant portion of their income from performing AAA repairs and screening.

AAAnswers coalition partners.jpg

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*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

The Top Ten Preventive Health Services

doctor appleWith all the controversy about the utility of mammography, optimal Pap smear intervals, and risks of prostate cancer screening, you have to ask yourself – what are the most beneficial and cost effective preventive services we should be focusing on?

Here are the top 10 preventive services. These items were chosen by the National Commission on Prevention Priorities, and highlight those preventive services including immunizations, screenings, preventive medications, and counseling that give “the most bang for the buck.”  For an in depth discussion of methods and results, read Am J Prev Med 2006;31(1):52–61
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*This blog post was originally published at The Examining Room of Dr. Charles*

The Mammogram Debate: Two Doctors Discuss Why It’s So Complicated

Dr. Avrum Bluming is a medical oncologist and clinical professor of medicine at the University of Southern California. He is also a dear friend, scientist, and careful analyzer of data. I asked him to help me understand the current mammogram guidelines debate, and what women (now faced with conflicting recommendations) should do about breast cancer screening. Please listen to his fascinating discussion captured here:

[audio:https://getbetterhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/mammogrambluming.mp3]

What I learned is that the guidelines must be tailored to each woman’s unique situation. The variables that must be considered are incredibly complex, as breast cancer risk factors include everything from when and if one has given birth, to a history of smoking, drinking, overweight, breast cancer in the family and even the age of your parents when you were born. Beyond risk factors, new research suggests that some breast cancers spontaneously resolve without treatment, but our technology is not advanced enough to distinguish those from others that will go on to become life-threatening tumors – so we treat all cancers the same. Read more »

Domestic Violence: More Common Than You Think

Browsing through my October ENA Connection the other day, I noticed the theme was “Government and Advocacy”. Came across an article on domestic violence. It’s a short article, written by Carrie Norman, RN, CEN, member of the Government Affairs Committee. The quotes below are taken from Carrie’s article.

“The CDC estimates that 37 percent of women who sought emergency department care were victims of domestic violence.”

What? 37 out of every 100 women I have triaged?

Seriously?

“Domestic violence victims are more likely to seek treatment for chronic and psychological conditions.”

Okay. But no way have I been taking care of victims of domestic abuse – I mean, hello, wouldn’t it be obvious? The hovering, overbearing abuser who answers all the questions for the patient? The bruises that aren’t explained by the story? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Emergiblog*

Preventive Medicine – Is It Now Politically Correct To Brush It Aside?

As a class of human beings, cardiologists do not enjoy subtlety or nuance. Indeed, the reason most of them chose to specialize in cardiology, as opposed to specializing in some other organ system, is that the heart is the most unsubtle organ in the body. Unlike, say, the liver or the kidneys or even the brain (which, after all, just sit there), the heart does something quite obvious, and furthermore it does it 50 – 100 times per minute (so that even a physician with a very short attention span is likely to notice).

So perhaps it is not surprising that cardiologists seem to have entirely failed to mark certain emerging – and quite subtle – currents in the “preventive health” movement, and accordingly, continue to unabashedly seek more and more “preventive tools,” whatever the cost, with all the sensitivity and social awareness of the cousin who obliviously shows up at the funeral of the family priest wearing a pro-choice lapel pin. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*

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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