Great Piece on Critical Decisions
Here is a well-written piece by The Global Mail discussing Critical Decisions. Take a look.
As if being diagnosed with breast cancer wasn’t bad enough, many women with this diagnosis face complicated decisions about what kind of medicine or chemotherapy to take, if any, to reduce their chance of cancer recurrence. As I discussed in a recent post, the mathematics of such decisions can be hard to comprehend for many patients. …
KARAN: Though I hope our readers all read your book, for those who haven’t just yet, I want to start with an example that touches on the issues it discusses. I recently got a bad ankle sprain. The following week, I went to a local orthopedic surgeon for it. He was a very old-school doctor; before…
I have been writing a bit lately on the need for healthcare providers to talk with their patients about healthcare costs, if for no other reason than to enable patients to determine whether they can afford to pay for the healthcare that their doctors are recommending them to receive. I have been criticized for this position, on…
Let’s warm up with a quick arithmetic problem, which I want you to do in your head. What is one thousand plus forty? Now add another thousand And thirty more Plus twenty Plus another thousand And finally, add an additional ten. What’s the answer? According to Dean Buonomano, in his excellent book Brain Bugs, the majority…
In her deservedly best-selling book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot reproduces the language of Lacks’s informed consent document when she was about to undergoing her cancer surgery at Johns Hopkins in 1951: I hereby give consent to the staff of the Johns Hopkins Hospital to perform any operative procedures and under any anesthetic…
It is not an easy time to be a physician in the United States. Attempt to order an expensive test for a patient and an insurance company is likely to second guess your decision. Try upholding the bottom line for your medical practice and the government will probably start questioning whether you are overcharging for…