Surgery can be risky. People with major cardiovascular or respiratory illnesses undergoing major surgeries, for example, are at risk for major surgical complications, even death. But healthy people receiving less intense interventions typically fly through with nary a concern. Nevertheless, perhaps worried about those few patients who suffer major complications, many physicians order a gaggle…
I love teaching at Duke. I can’t believe, actually, that I’m able to do that for a living. One of the great things about teaching is interacting with smart, ambitious students. And today, Duke’s The Chronicle just wrote about one such student, Elle Wilson who took a class from me last fall, and now designed…
California is in the middle of an historic drought, with the government setting limits on how long people can sing in the shower. Farmers in the state may soon need to cut back on planting or production, as ground water dries up. But California is still fruitful ground for testing promising ways to improve how…
We have an outlier problem when it comes to healthcare spending. Sure, there are some services we provide far too often for far too many people. And in the United States, at least, most of the healthcare services we provide for patients are far too expensive. But a closer look at healthcare spending data reveal…
When I think of the federal government, “efficiency” is rarely the first thing on my mind. But when it comes to controlling healthcare costs, we need to consider the possibility that the federal government is better at this job than anyone else. Consider the fact that the United States dwarfs other countries in healthcare spending,…
Below is a recent article in U.S. News and World Report, written by Niam Yaraghi of the Brookings Institution, on why doctors continue to perform expensive and unnecessary tests like prostate cancer screening. Unnecessary and harmful medical procures are a major source of waste in the U.S. health care system. Prostate-specific antigen-based screening (or PSA-based…
I have two teenage boys. So of course I’m worried about them skipping the dating scene and engaging in “hookups.” That seems to be what kids do these days. But now, do I also have to worry about them engaging in hookah? Dave Chokshi (@davechokshi) recently tweeted an image of trends in tobacco use among…
Every once in a while, I post a picture of an effort to nudge people into better behavior. Sometimes, I post pictures of pretty horrendous nudges. In response to one of those posts, Lydia Ashton sent me this picture, of an absolutely, horrendously and horrifically designed “nudge.” Fortunately, I have determined that if you stare…
Paying someone to mow your lawn is a pretty straightforward affair. Ryan the lawn guy will look at the lawn size and maybe the hilliness of your yard and you’ll settle on a price for mowing and trimming it. When you decide to contract for Ryan’s services on a more regular basis, payment might get…
I recently had surgery to relieve an impingement of my left hip. I suffered a complication of the procedure in the hospital where I received the surgery performed follow-up care to treat the complication. As I lay on the table receiving that second treatment I wondered – okay, I mainly wondered “are they really going…