Dose Response
“Dose Response” – The Sciences
“Dose Response” – The Sciences
Thanks to the popularity of medical television shows, most people have witnessed hundreds of fictional cardiac arrests in their lifetime. In most of these scenes, the patient loses consciousness, and the medical team rushes to the bedside: “He’s in V-fib.” “Get me the paddles.” The team performs urgent chest compressions for a few seconds. Then…
It is notoriously difficult to change physician behavior. When it’s discovered that primary care physicians are, say, prescribing too few cholesterol pills or too many antibiotics, it will not be easy to change those behaviors. Physicians are strong-willed people, with lots of things competing for their attention and with many well ingrained habits. That’s why…
A while back, my friend and colleague Brendan Nyhan sent out a disturbing picture showing that moderate politicians, from both the Democratic and Republican parties, are less likely to run for seats in the House of Representatives than more extreme politicians: Very disturbing trend! It is hard to see the policies of our country improving if…
The Commonwealth Fund recently circulated information on the widespread difficulty many Americans have paying for their medical care, even when they have insurance. Burdened by high co-pays and high coinsurance rates, these out-of-pocket expenses are putting people on the financial edge. Here is a picture of the results, which show that a third of people…
My student and colleague, Karen Scherr, recently published an excellent article showing that physicians don’t always describe robotic surgery in an unbiased manner. Here is a nice write up of that work: Author Peter Ubel referred to a study done at four Veterans Affairs medical centers of men making decisions on how best to treat…
A JAMA study shows that even though Americans are eating more nuts and whole grains than they used to (see previous post), they aren’t coming CLOSE to meeting dietary requirements: Changing what people eat takes a long time!