A very disturbing new study was just published, in which physicians viewed a video of a patient with back pain asking for OxyContin. Twenty percent of docs said they would prescribe that med under that circumstance: …Too often, doctors prescribe potentially dangerous medications to patients who shouldn’t be getting them, and what they prescribe is…
Six-year old Kimmy Merrill fell into an abandoned well outside of Oswega, Pennsylvania, her cries unnoticed in the remote countryside until her mother Susan wandered within earshot of the well. Unable to save Kimmy even with the help of local firefighters, Susan pleaded for rescue workers to dig a hole parallel to the well. Desperate…
Such a no-brainer: If patients who receive care at Hospital A are more likely to get readmitted to the hospital 10, 20 or 30 days after discharge than patients in Hospital B, then Hospital A must be doing something wrong. Perhaps clinicians at that hospital are less adept at diagnosing and managing patients’ problems. Perhaps…
I’m not sure why I didn’t notice this earlier, but I just came across a very gracious, even overly generous, review of my book, Critical Decisions in the leading journal of bioethics, The Hastings Center Report. I thought I would share it with you: When I finally got eyeglasses as a teenager, after denying the…
Here is a link to an article I co-authored in the New England Journal this week, with Yousuf Zafar and Amy Abernethy. In the article, we urge physicians to talk about out-of-pocket costs with patients, given that these costs can sometimes have a bigger negative impact on their lives than the kind of treatment side…
Okay, worst blog post title of the year. But just trying to grab your attention and point you towards a nice USA Today article on doctors and emotional intelligence. “Tamir Mosharrafa, a plastic surgeon in Phoenix, recalls the 20-something woman who came in for liposuction. “Dani” was very lean and very pretty – and “absolutely…