Is it the white coat? That’s what I wondered in medical school when I would find patients asking me for advice on topics they simply had to know more about than me. Mothers would ask me how to get their newborn babies to sleep through the night, asking me even though the one time I babysat…
Alex, a third-year medical student, is in the middle of his surgery rotation. He frequently finds himself rather shocked by some of the unseemly remarks that his attending, Dr. Tate, makes during surgery and between seeing patients on rounds. A highly respected surgeon, Dr. Tate is personable with patients and well liked by them, but…
Medication prices in the US have gone from wild to insane; from expensive to outright unaffordable. But a tripling in prices could save us all a lot of money. Here’s how that would work. It’s a policy known as external reference pricing. The idea is simple. First, the US government would look at how much…
JoAnn Pushkin’s breast cancer was diagnosed at an advanced stage because the density of her breasts obscured the tumor on her mammograms. That was shocking news to Pushkin, who only learned that her breasts were radiologically dense at the time of her diagnosis. Activated by this revelation, she has become a leading advocate of legislation,…
High blood pressure is the silent killer. It puts people at risk for heart attacks, strokes, vascular disease, kidney failure…it is basically really bad to have longstanding, undertreated high blood pressure. But it is also harmful to be told you have high blood pressure when you don’t, and to be treated for high blood pressure…
Euphemistically referred to as Consumer-Directed Health Plans, high out-of-pocket insurance is in theory supposed to incentivize people to scrutinize the cost and quality of their medical care, thus bringing pressure on providers to lower the price and/or raise the quality of their services. This theory isn’t borne out in practice. As a matter of practice…