Put simply, shared decision making is the gold standard — the sine qua non* — for how medical decisions ought to be made. The pipe medical choice is rarely a function of medical facts alone. Tough decisions require value judgments, and it is the patient’s valuesthat often determine which choice is best. An operation cannot…
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,…
Charlotte Scott had an eye for madness—for just the right amount of madness. As a booker for The Springer Show, her job was to find—and forgive me if I’m getting too technical here—minor nut jobs, the kind of people who were just unbalanced enough to make for entertaining T.V. but not so wacky that they would…
Facing advanced cancer, who among us wouldn’t look to our oncologist for expert advice on whether another round of chemotherapy makes sense? But do you know what your oncologist cares about, and can you be sure her recommendations map onto your own treatment preferences? … (Read the rest and view comments at Critical Decisions)
All too often the most powerful illusions seduce us through truthful whisperings. Let’s start with an obvious truth: Living a long and happy life after a cancer diagnosis is better than living a short miserable one.
read more
Who doesn’t want to get smarter? The Brain Gym Company claims to have found a number of ways people can attain all these goals. But their wacky mixture of pseudo-science and balderdash is more a function of bamboozlement through jargon than of any real proof that the program works.
read more
LeBron James exploded past his defender and raced towards the lane. Serge Ibaka, the Thunder’s mountainous center, planted his feet and raised his hands straight up into the air. LeBron ducked his left shoulder and plowed right into Ibaka, who went crashing backwards into a nearby cameraman.
Offensive foul?
The American Urological Association (the AUA) is outraged that the Unites State Preventative Services Task Force doesn’t support, has even “disparaged,” PSA screening. Dr. John Lynch, a member of its Board of Directors, even appealed to prostate cancer survivors to lobby against the Task Force’s recommendation, painting a dire picture of life without this controversial screening test:
read more
A recent economic analysis concluded that patients with metastatic cancer value their treatments significantly more than regulators recognize, with many expensive new therapies looking like veritable bargains to most patients.
read more
Dr. Timothy Wilt, a member of the United States Preventive Services Task Force, stood in front of the American Urological Association audience and explained why the task force could not recommend that men undergo routine PSA screening. At most, he explained, the test had been shown to benefit one out of 1000 men.
read more