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Unnecessary Mastectomies Following Breast Cancer Diagnoses?
ByadminI spoke the other day to Melissa Dahl, a writer for New York Magazine. She wrote a really nice piece on what medical professionals call “contralateral prophylactic mastectomy” – when a woman with breast cancer chooses not only to remove the affected breast, but also the unaffected breast in order to reduce the chance of…
Do Starbucks Employees Have More Emotional Intelligence than Your Physician?
ByadminA cranky customer snaps at his barista, lodging an unjustifiable complaint about the service, the temperature of the drink…about anything and everything. He came into the store angry (and in pain from a chronic illness) and he needed something–or someone!–to take it out on. He is met by a well-trained smile, the barista doling out…
Impending Spending Disaster – A Warning From Japanese Nursing Homes
Byadmin2Populations across many wealthy countries are aging. That means a huge swath of people will soon find themselves needing some kind of long-term care. Here is a quick look at what the aging of a population means for how much a country spends on long-term care. The data, published in the journal Health Affairs, come…
ACA Boosts Shared Decision Making
ByadminMedicine, today, is supposed to be “patient-centered.” But sometimes the patients feel a little off balance. What can they do when everyone seems to be trying to push aggressive, expensive treatments on them? One solution — or a partial solution — is known as shared decision making, in which patients are given specific tools, such…
What Higher Ed Can Learn From Health Care
BypeterCheck out my recent interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education about the rising costs of education and healthcare: For decades, higher education has come under public scrutiny for rising costs. But there is at least one other sector that seems to feel even more heat from policy makers and ire from the public. That…
Are Doctors Afraid to Talk Math with Their Patients?
ByadminBefore patients can become savvy consumers of healthcare, they need information about their healthcare choices. Too often, such information is nearly impossible to get, especially when it requires doctors to give patients useful statistics about things like treatment side effects. Since publishing Critical Decisions this fall, I have received a number of emails from readers who…
