New Review of Critical Decisions
A review of Critical Decisions was recently published in The American Journal of Bioethics. You can check it out here.
(Click here to view comments)
A review of Critical Decisions was recently published in The American Journal of Bioethics. You can check it out here.
(Click here to view comments)
Helping patients understand their treatment choices is often no simple matter. In order for good communication to take place, doctors and patients must talk with each other in a language both parties can understand. Here is a piece in which I discuss an earnestly communicative hematologist describing the risks and benefits of treating leukemia to his patient.
With health care costs rising, employers (and insurance companies) are increasingly asking consumers (aka “patients”) to have more “skin in the game”—to pay more out of pocket for their medical care. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a nice report on trends in health insurance deductibles. This picture shows the rise in these deductibles. That means:…
A recent study of men with early-stage prostate cancer found no difference in 10-year death rates, regardless of whether their doctors actively monitored the cancers for signs of growth or eradicated the men’s cancers with surgery or radiation. What does this study mean for patients? Based on research we have conducted on prostate cancer decision-making,…
The urologist broke the news: “Out of 12 cores, three were positive for cancer, so you have a small amount of cancer.” He would soon explain the treatment choices—surgery, radiation, or active surveillance (watching the cancer closely with blood tests and biopsies). He described each option in elaborate detail, because he knew that the “right…
My colleagues and I have been doing lots of research lately on how physicians and patients discuss out-of-pocket expenses during clinic encounters. One of our recent publications has been getting lots of attention, with this being the latest example. I thought I would share it with you: Recent qualitative findings published in Health Affairs showed that physicians…
Medicine, 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…