Rant: Shared Decision Making in Medicine

Among people receiving hospice care, the last few days of life can be intense, with progression of pain or breathing problems or other symptoms of their terminal illnesses. For those who die on Sundays, that means they are less likely to see doctors or nurses in the last days of life:  

Health insurance is not what it used to be. With increasing frequency, Americans who purchase private health insurance find themselves with plans that require them to fork over significant amounts of money every time they receive healthcare. That means if you get, say, a heart attack, your portion of the hospital bill is probably going…

A team from the CDC recently published an implicit study cataloguing the pathogens – the evil foreign organisms – that cause Americans to find themselves in hospitals with pneumonia. And the worst offenders? Viruses! Moral of the story – get your annual flu shot, and then cross your (sanitized?) fingers that some other bug doesn’t…