By Maggie Mertens

If you really want to remake health care and lower costs, do something about medical malpractice, doctors are telling Congress. But malpractice insurance costs are actually stabilizing in most parts of the country, even as Congress lurches along on legislation some say should do more to address it.

(iStockphoto)

A big majority -- 94 percent -- of malpractice premiums either stayed the same or decreased in 2009, according to the annual Medical Liability Monitor survey. The news follows a four-year trend of medical liability insurance premiums dropping nationwide.

The decrease in premiums is due to a drop in the number of medical lawsuits filed, according to Lawrence Smarr, president and CEO of the Physician Insurers Association of America. Why are the number of cases going down? A combination of factors, including state tort reform laws and patient safety improvements in some states, said Robert Francis, chief operating officer of The Doctors Company, a physician-owned liability insurer.

Continue reading "Docs Case For Tort Reform Gets Harder To Make" >

By Christopher Weaver

Dr. Nancy Nielsen, the immediate past president of the American Medical Association, urged lawmakers Tuesday to do away with once and for all looming cuts to Medicare's physician payments -- something her organization has demanded for years.

At issue is a 12-year-old formula--passed as part of a broader bill by a GOP Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton--that requires Medicare to squeeze physician payments when they outpace broader economic growth, which they have since 2003.

Congress has intervened to block such cuts to doctors' pay in each of the last seven years. But, those Band-Aids, as Nielsen calls them, are temporary. New cuts always loom in the next year.

Continue reading "Medicare Pay For Doctors Serves As Pawn In Overhaul Debate" >

By Scott Hensley

Ask anybody who knows us, we love Twitter. So you don't have to pay us to follow you, just tweet interesting things, OK?

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about the American Osteopathic Association. We just got a mailing from the medical group that promised us a $10 iTunes gift card in exchange for following the group's Twitter feed just for the media. That offer is a new one on us and something that rubs us the wrong way.

Click on the scan of a card in the AOA mailing to see the instructions to journalists for collecting $10 iTunes gift cards.

The AOA represents 67,000 doctors of osteopathic medicine, or DOs, who have the same privileges as MDs but subscribe to a philosophy of care dating back to the 1800s that "focuses on the unity of all body parts," as the AOA Web site explains.

Continue reading "Osteopaths' Group Offers Gifts To Journalists For Following Twitter Feed" >

By Scott Hensley

For generations the American Medical Association, the biggest trade group for doctors in the U.S., has pretty much symbolized the entrenched health-care establishment. The AMA even popularized the term "socialized medicine" almost a century ago in its fight against national health insurance.

AMA President James Rohack talks about health overhaul on Capitol Hill in September. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

But lately the group has come out in support of health overhaul, even endorsing, somewhat controversially at first, House Democrats' bill to remake the nation's health system.

The AMA, which represents about 250,000 doctors, just wrapped up a big meeting in Houston where the members of its policy-making House of Delegates took some bold stands. In one vote, they asked the federal government to revisit the classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug, like peyote or LSD, because that status inhibits research on its potential medical benefits.

The group also passed a resolution calling on the military to abandon its "don't ask, don't tell" policy on sexual preference because it hurts health care of gays and lesbians. Another resolution criticizes bans on same-sex marriage because they contribute to health disparities.

Continue reading "AMA Broadens Its Social Agenda" >

By Scott Hensley

How would doctors across the country actually like an overhaul that brought health coverage to the uninsured? Pretty well, if it rolls out anything like the one in Massachusetts.

Three years after the state enacted a law mandating health coverage for just about everyone, less than 3 percent of people there are uninsured.

So far, so good, doctors say. Seventy percent of more than 2,100 Massachusetts physicians polled recently gave the reform law a thumbs-up. Just 13 percent opposed it; 16 percent didn't know or wouldn't answer the question.

Yes, we know the numbers add up to 99 percent, but that's because of rounding, the pollsters at Harvard School of Public Health say. The results just went up on the Web site of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Continue reading "Massachusetts Docs ♥ Universal Coverage" >

By Scott Hensley

The big challenge in health care isn't always finding a new cure but instead getting doctors to use the ones already out there.

(iStockphoto.com)

Take, for instance, a generic drug to help patients with serious heart failure. Despite advice issued by two leading professional societies for heart doctors in 2005, two years later less than a third of hospitalized heart failure patients who could benefit from drugs called aldosterone antagonists were on them when leaving the hospital. In Europe, about half of such patients are taking the drugs at discharge.

The findings, published in the current issue of JAMA, underscore the continuing challenge of getting doctors to incorporate evidence-based treatments into everyday practice.

Continue reading "Doctors Often Ignore Recommended Heart Failure Drug " >

By Maggie Mertens

When health questions crop up, the first resource for answers is often the family doctor. But if eating right is on your mind, how would you feel if the doctor's professional society is taking money from the soft-drink industry?

Should Coke pay your family doctor to tell you what to drink? (Justin Sullivan/Getty)

The American Academy of Family Physicians just inked a controversial deal with Coca-Cola to develop educational material for consumers on the beverages that have made the company a mint.

It's the first corporate alliance for AAFP. President Dr. Lori Heim wouldn't disclose the exact amount involved but said the medical group would receive an amount "in the strong six figures."

For the money, the doctors' group will provide info on how people can "incorporate sweetened, unsweetened and artificially sweetened beverages into a healthy lifestyle," Heim said.

Continue reading "Family Doctors Sign Educational Deal With Coca-Cola" >

By Scott Hensley

Here we go again. Another stolen laptop, and a whole bunch more personal data that could be used for no-good.

What's up, doc? Maybe your personal data online. ( iStockphoto.com)

A computer belonging to an employee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association got filched from a vandalized car in August, the Chicago Tribune reports. On the laptop: personal info on hundreds of thousands of doctors and their practices, including, in some cases, such details as Social Security numbers and ID numbers used by insurers to pay docs.

Nearly all practicing docs in the country, or about 800,000, have been warned about the breach.

Continue reading "Stolen Laptop Held Data On Thousands Of Doctors" >

By Scott Hensley

Scan highway billboards, flick on your TV or listen very long to the radio and you'll probably come across an ad from a hospital touting robot-assisted surgery as the way to go for treating prostate cancer.

A surgeon hunches over the console of a surgical robot. ( Intuitive Surgical)

The main selling point boils down to a promise of precision. An unflappable robot allows a surgeon to operate through tiny incisions and make such careful work of prostate removal that dreaded side effects--impotence and incontinence--are vastly reduced compared with a surgeon operating alone. Right? Wrong, say researchers who analyzed years of data on experience with the gee-whiz technology.

A study just published by JAMA suggests older men whose prostates were removed with a robot's help actually have greater chances of being impotent or incontinent than if they had the surgery done the relatively old-fashioned way. After adjusting for all sorts of factors, the researchers found a diagnosis of incontinence after surgery was 30 percent more likely in the robot group and impotence was 40 percent more likely.

Continue reading "Humans Beat Robots On Prostate Surgery Side Effects" >

By Scott Hensley

Now we have the official number for how much reforming the nation's medical malpractice system could save: $11 billion this year.

Is 0.5% of health spending a lot or a little? (iStockphoto.com)

How you see the estimate, just issued by the Congressional Budget Office, is something altogether different.

Aha! say the advocates of caps on malpractice and other measures to rein in suits against doctors. That $11 billion is real money. And there's the $59 billion in deficit reduction over a decade, the CBO estimates."That's not chump change," Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said in a statement. "It's a no-brainer to include tort reform in any health care reform legislation."

Continue reading "Malpractice Reform Would Trim $11 Billion From Health Spending" >

By Scott Hensley

Nobody will make much progress in taming health-care spending in this country without getting doctors on board.

A medical mystery unraveled in Lewiston, Maine. (NPR/John W. Poole)

In the first installment of a series on escalating health costs, NPR's Alix Spiegel takes a look at the curious case of Lewiston, Maine, where back in the 1970s so many women were getting hysterectomies that 70 percent of female residents were likely to have had one by the time they reached 70. In a nearby town the hysterectomy rate was more like 25 percent.

How come? The big difference wasn't the patients, it was the doctors. The ones in Lewiston recommended hysterectomies far more often than their peers elsewhere.

Continue reading "Maine Town Sheds Light On Doctors' Role In Cost Problem" >

by Deborah Franklin

When it takes two health professionals 30 minutes and a bunch of algebra to puzzle out the proper dose of the flu drug Tamiflu to give their sick six-year-old, how's the average parent supposed to make sense of medication labels?

Kara Jacobson, a health literacy researcher at Emory University in Atlanta -- and mom of the sick kid in question -- would sure like to know.

Jacobson says she was "sick as a dog and flat on my back," with swine flu two weeks ago when her two daughters came down with flu symptoms. Their pediatrician prescribed liquid Tamiflu for the six-year-old.

And that's when the trouble began.

Continue reading "Careful With Tamiflu Dosing In Kids" >

By Scott Hensley

You can't expect a generation of med students that's practically grown up online to refrain entirely from using Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. But a little decorum from the nation's future doctors would go a long way.

NSFMS: Not safe for med school. (iStockphoto.com)

Results of a survey of med school administrators found a fair amount of unseemly online conduct by their students. Among the 78 med schools that responded to the survey, 60 percent reported incidents of students posting unprofessional content on the Web.

What were the common problems? The usual Facebook fare: profanity, depictions of intoxication and sexually suggestive material. Some of the more troubling examples went further, though, including violations of patient confidentiality--reported by 13 percent of responding schools--and "frankly discriminatory language" reported by 4 percent. The findings appear in the current issue of JAMA.

Continue reading "Med Students Gone Wild On Facebook" >

By Scott Hensley

The Mayo Clinic keeps popping up as a model for how Americans should get their care. There's hardly a better brand-name around, but could the Mayo approach, melding lower-than-average cost and better-than-average quality, really work everywhere?

The Mayo Brothers, founders of the eponymous clinic, insisted on salaries for doctors. (Mayo Clinic)

NPR's Linda Wertheimer asks Mayo Clinic President and CEO Denis Cortese on Tuesday's Morning Edition. Yes, he says, the Mayo model "is transportable--with difficulty." The key ingredient is instilling a culture among physicians that puts the needs of patients first, he says.

We thought the Hippocratic Oath was supposed to cover that, but evidently even the modernized version used in many med schools isn't up to the task.

Continue reading "Mayo Clinic: America's Model?" >

By Scott Hensley

Twenty-five million dollars sounds doesn't sound like much, but it's the administration's start down the road to potential medical malpractice reform.

The money will go toward experiments that try to reduce preventable injuries, improve communication between patients and doctors, assure "fair and timely" compensation to injured patients while cutting down on "frivolous lawsuits," and lower malpractice insurance premiums for doctors, as Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explained it today.

The announcement is a follow-up to President Obama's pledge to get moving on malpractice projects made during his speech to Congress last week. A presidential memo to Sebelius on the subject is here.

Continue reading "Feds To Spend $25 Million On Malpractice Projects" >

By Scott Hensley

Set aside the debate for just a moment over how big a factor medical malpractice really is in rising health-care spending.

(iStockphoto.com)

If not convinced it's a problem, President Obama at least entertained the notion of malpractice reform in his big health speech, saying "defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs." And, he said, Health and Human Services would move ahead quickly with some test projects contemplated by the Bush administration.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, those include early disclosure of errors and apologies for them, and screening of potential lawsuits by doctors to weed out frivolous claims.

Continue reading "Malpractice Reform Scramble Is On" >

By Scott Hensley

Say you're the editor of a medical journal and you've come to realize that lots of manuscripts coming your way have probably been shaped by the drug industry. You want to stop it, but how do you figure out which ones were the work of ghostwriters when those folks don't want you to know?

Let's see what's in the Word file. (Wikimedia Commons)

Well, you could start by taking a look at the data inside the electronic files submitted by authors. That's what Fred Curtiss, editor in chief of the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy has done, and, as Reuters reports, he has found about one-third of manuscripts have been handled by people not listed as authors.

His method is to look at the metadata attached to Microsoft Word files, which often include identifying information about who has made changes to a document. (Microsoft explains how to find this stuff--and delete it--here.)

Continue reading "Catching Ghostwriters Is A Game Of Cat And Mouse" >

By Scott Hensley

By now just about everyone knows the folks whose names appear at the top of articles in leading medical journals aren't always the ones who wrote them.

Ghosts pop up in some of the strangest places. ( piccadillywilson / Flickr)

A big concern is ghostwriting arranged and paid for by the drug industry? So how often are important authors left off the papers? Try, 10.9 percent of time in the New England Journal of Medicine, 7.9 percent in JAMA, and 4.9 percent in the Annals of Internal Medicine, according to a survey of authors whose papers appeared in six top journals last year. Overall, 8 percent of papers had ghost authors.

The New York Times reports on the results, presented this morning at a meeting of medical editors in Vancouver, Canada.

Continue reading "Ghostwriters Lurk Behind Top Medical Journals" >

By April Fulton

Americans put a lot of trust in their doctors and nurses and other health care providers, but sometimes they don't act in our best interest. Like when they steal drugs or abuse patients, a la Nurse Jackie.

NPR Health Correspondent Joseph Shapiro has a piece on Morning Edition tomorrow about a secret government database that has a lot of this kind of information in it. The problem? We can't get into it.

When doctors and nurses abuse these and us, shouldn't somebody know about it? (iStockphoto.com)

Shapiro looks at the story of the Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank -- a wonky-sounding thing that contains 22 years of historic data on health professionals' wrongdoing.

Continue reading "When Health Providers Go Bad And We Don't Know It" >

By Scott Hensley

No conversation about overhauling health care can get very far before a doctor, just about any doctor, says lawyers and malpractice suits are big reasons health costs are so high. Republicans, even the ones who aren't doctors, generally agree.

Malpractice caps fire up doctors and the GOP. (iStockphoto.com)

On NPR's Morning Edition, Scott Horsley reports on "that old Republican chestnut: cutting down on frivolous lawsuits." Would caps on malpractice make a big difference in costs? Or, perhaps more significantly at the moment, would Democrats attract Republican support for health legislation by adding provisions to limit the liability of doctors?

Bill Bradley, the silky basketball shooter and deal-making New Jersey senator back in the day, suggested a political play to fellow Democrats in a New York Times opinion piece over the weekend: "Combine universal coverage with malpractice tort reform in health care."

Continue reading "Would Malpractice Caps Matter?" >

By Scott Hensley

Change insurance plans, move or learn that you have a tough health challenge that requires a specialist, and you'll be hunting for a doctor.

Who's better?

iStockphoto.com

But how to decide which one to see? It's one of the hardest choices a person has to make because there's so little information to go on.

Most people we know ask their friends and colleagues for advice. In a pinch, you may end up singing "eeny, meeny, miny, moe" as you leaf through your insurer's directory of approved doctors.

Continue reading "New Online Help For Finding A Doctor" >

By Scott Hensley

You think your health insurer slaps you with some wild charges? Well, the insurers say take a look at what comes our way from some doctors.

(iStockphoto.com)

The trade group America's Health Insurance Plans released results of a survey of high charges submitted by doctors outside the insurers' approved networks of physicians last year. The snapshot, says AHIP, shows the value of the networks of providers and negotiated rates that insurers put together.

There are some doozies, even after the group says it screened out some of the highest charges that might have been submitted in error.

How about a hip replacement in Arizona for which the doctor charged $17,357 compared with the Medicare fee of $1315.60. Or, take a look at a pricey gallbladder surgery in Colorado: doctor's charge $26,100 versus the usual Medicare fee of $625.94.

Continue reading "Insurers Hit Back At Doctor Charges" >

By Scott Hensley

If you're perplexed by the automated directory of choices when you call the doctor, you aren't alone.

Yes, even medical professionals get frustrated by the maze of push-button options, which each office seems to organize differently.

Does the doctor's phone service make you see red? (iStockphoto.com)

Can't we just standardize those darned things, asks Graham Walker, a second-year emergency medicine resident, on the Central Line blog from the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Walker, a clever blogger from way back, obviously spends a lot of time working his phone's keypad. We're guessing he crafted his plea for uniformity (written as haiku) while on hold. It begins:

Can we standardize
A doctor's call services?
I am losing it.

Continue reading "Press *9 For Relief From Doctors' Answering Services" >

By Scott Hensley

You may be on summer vacation, but the interest groups looking to make their mark on legislation to overhaul health care are working harder than ever.

No rest for the weary lobbyists. ( Alykat / via Flickr )

The Wall Street Journal reports that delays on Capitol Hill make this month the key time to "snare one-on-one meetings with lawmakers back in their home districts."

Take Tim Trysla, a lobbyist at Alston + Bird. Makers of diagnostic imaging equipment are among his clients. "If you're looking for savings, don't come at us," says Trysla, who has called on 120 legislators, sometimes taking General Electric execs along to make the case for protecting payment for medical scans. (Check out a nifty WSJ interactive graphic on lobbying spending here.)

Continue reading "Morning Rounds: No Rest For Lobbyists, Mass. Rethinks Doctor Pay & FDA Warning" >

By Scott Hensley

It may be back to school for swine flu this fall. The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration is rethinking guidelines for handling swine flu at schools.

See you in September ( CDC )

The Post, citing people involved in the work, said the feds may recommend that schools remain open except when there are "extenuating circumstances." Those particulars might include a school that has lots of kids with existing health problems or many ill teachers, though an official told the paper the discussions continue and no final decision has been made.

Of course, the final call at each school will be made locally. But if the feds scale back advice on when to close, schools may stay open longer even in the face of an expected resurgence of swine flu this fall.

Continue reading "Morning Rounds: Swine Flu School, BPA Warning & Cuba Exports Docs" >

by April Fulton

UAB Engineering Students use the Wii for CPR from uabnews on Vimeo.

Nintendo seems to be carving out a niche with all the new health-related applications that keep popping up for their interactive video gaming system Wii.

That white rectangle remote that allows players to control on-screen actions is movin' on up from recreational use, like improving a golf or tennis swing; to medical use, like training students in CPR, or helping with physical therapy.

It is also credited with reducing X-ray techs' wrist strains and preparing surgeons for laproscopic surgery.

(Our sister blog, Monkey See has a slightly disturbing video showing college kids testing out virtual surgery, and trust me, the simulated surgery is the least disturbing part.)

But what else can Wii do?

Help senior citizens challenge each other to bowling matches, that's what, says our Two-Way blog.

Any other cool apps, medical or otherwise, we've missed?

by Julie Rosenthal, MD

The author's monster lurks on an eyelash Dr. Ralph Eagle/Wills Eye, Philadelphia

Picture the most disgusting, creepy creature you can imagine -- one that haunts your nightmares. Now imagine that as part of the job you love you have to come face to face with that monster.

I'm a resident doctor at a hospital in Philadelphia. During my training, I've helped with childbirth and surgery. I've handled blood, guts, and gore, and haven't been fazed.

But recently, during a shift in our eye emergency room, I encountered pubic lice, or crabs, on a patient's eyelashes.

Continue reading "A New Doctor Deals With Fear And Loathing" >

by April Fulton

Good Morning.

The business community is reeling following Wal-Mart's surprising announcement that it would join a major union to support a controversial proposal to require employers to either provide health insurance to employees or pay into a government fund.

The ever-colorful Neil Trautwein, vice president of the National Retail Federation, tells Fox News yesterday in this video that if Wal-Mart made some sort of back door deal, it may come back to bite the company. Literally.

"If you offer an alligator an arm, chances are it's going to come back for the other arm and both legs, so I just don't think it's a success strategy," he says.

Continue reading "Morning Rounds: Biz Bashes Wal-Mart, Drug Coverage Saves Money, Argentina Adjusts To Flu" >

by Deborah Franklin

Don't forget the patient /istockphoto.com

Now, I ask this with love, truly I do: Why must some budding doctors -- any doctors -- be trained to be human?

A commentary in this week's Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that med students be offered this handy mnemonic (CAPTURES*) to jog their memories on how to interact with patients:

C = Curiosity/interest
Adopt a warm, sincere, friendly Curiosity or interest about your Patient's personal aspects

A = Appreciate/Admire
Find something to warmly Appreciate or Admire in your patient

P = Point of view
Always try to see things from the Patient's Perspective/Point of View

TU = Touch and Use
Touch the patient and Use other body language (proximity, attention, smile) to show caring

RE = React
React to what the patient says or does and how

S = Support and Stress
Support the patient by Stressing any positive aspects, providing reassurance and hope as much as possible

* = Continue
Continue with this approach in future encounters: When there is more to be accomplished than time allows, postponement and organizing a further appointment will relieve stress and facilitate the relationship.

Oh, dear.

It's one thing to need this sort of memory crutch to recall all the branches of the carotid artery or the tributaries of the internal jugular vein. "To Zanzibar By Motor Car" is a heck of a lot easier to remember than the facial nerve's branches (temporal, zygomatic, buccal, masseteric, and cervical, btw).

Dr. Ami Schattner of Hebrew University and Hadassah Medical School promises in the Archives commentary:

These simple, easily mastered, and time-frugal techniques, all in the realm of human interaction, can be regularly used to add a sincere humane touch to the beleaguered medical encounter.

Translation: Act like a human and patients will think you are one.

There's a better way.

(Look after the jump for insights from the late poet/psychiatrist Kenneth Gorelick)

Continue reading "Helping Doctors Be More Human" >

by Deborah Franklin

It's true there are no magic pills in medicine, but some are more transformative than others. Today's headlines bring news of two drugs definitely worth watching -- one to prevent pregnancy, and the other to stop often deadly, inherited forms of breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice department continues its crackdown on Medicare fraud rings across the country. This week's snag: Detroit.

First, the pill to fight cancer: This week's New England Journal of Medicine has a report of a small, experimental test of a drug called a "PARP-inhibitor" among 19 patients with inherited forms of cancer that are caused by mutations in genes known as BRCA1 and BRCA2. As the BBC reports:

In 12 of the patients--none of whom had responded to other therapies -- tumors shrank or stabilized.

Continue reading "Morning Rounds: Pills and Politics" >

by Deborah Franklin

If the doc forgets to relay your test results, who's to blame? /istockphoto.com

If you haven't heard back about the results of a mammogram, PSA, or cholesterol check, don't assume you're fine.

A new study from Weill Cornell Medical College suggests there's a good chance, instead, that your test results got lost in a swamp of paperwork.

Dr. Lawrence Casalino and several colleagues at Cornell reviewed the medical records of a random sampling of more than 5,000 patients at 23 primary care clinics across the U.S. The researchers were distressed, but not surprised, to find that one of every 14 abnormal test results was never reported to the patient. And in some practices, the reporting rate was significantly worse.

Failure rates were highest in offices that use a combination of electronic and paper records.

Casalino urges patients to take charge.
"If you don't get the result you're waiting for," he tells HealthDay, "you really should call the doctor's office and ask for it."

He tells Science News that he decided to do the study after a close family member's doctor failed to relay results that could have been life-threatening.

It's one thing to ask somebody who's healthy to "take charge" of their medical care. Quite another for someone old or sick.

Have any of you had a similar experience --- some time when important medical info about you or a loved one fell through the cracks? What happened? And what would have helped?

Good Morning.

Three medical mysteries that have experts scrambling today sound more like financial headlines than health: They're all about dough, raw deals, and jobs.

First up, raw dough: Microbiologists from the FDA are in Danville, Va. this morning, scouring a Nestle factory for clues. The plant is thought to be the source of the contaminated raw cookie dough (recalled last Friday) that has sickened at least 65 people in 29 states. The big question: How did E.coli 0157 -- an especially nasty intestinal bug usually limited to cattle -- get into the pre-packaged dough?

According to the Washington Post, federal investigators are checking "a broad range of possible factors," including all ingredients, worker health, plant equipment and location. The Post says:

Federal officials are also considering whether the dough might have been intentionally contaminated.

Meanwhile, outraged veterans and radiation oncologists around the country are wondering why it took six years for regulators to discover that at least one surgeon at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center was routinely botching surgeries to treat prostrate cancer, and then covering up his mistakes.

Continue reading "Morning Rounds: Raw Deals and Medical Mysteries" >

by Richard Knox

Dr. Atul Gawande: Surgeon, writer, healthcare reformer /Rose Lincoln/Harvard News Office

Dr. Atul Gawande's commencement address this morning to graduating medical students at the University of Chicago reminds me of my favorite fortune-cookie saying: "All is not yet lost."

The Boston surgeon has been cited lately by everybody up to President Obama for his New Yorker article that pulled back the curtain on why doctors in McAllen, Texas, practice one of the most expensive styles of medicine in America.

It's because patients in McAllen get more "stuff," Gawande says. More tests, more procedures, more specialist visits, more hospital admissions. "But not necessarily more of what they need."

McAllen is far from alone. And health "reform" ain't gonna work if American docs keep doing that, Gawande told the newly minted physicians.

Continue reading "Atul's Heart-To-Heart With Med School Grads" >

by April Fulton

Good morning. Lots of health news to dissect today.

New FDA Commissioner Peggy Hamburg says she wants to take on tobacco, and it looks like she's going to get her wish.

NPR's Joanne Silberner reports that after a decade-long effort, the power to regulate cigarette content and advertising is about to fall into the agency's hands. They'll get a whole lot of new money to do it, too.

The Onion reports the fake but sadly, probably true peoples' reactions.

Flu Announcement Coming Soon

NPR's Richard Knox warns that the WHO is FINALLY about to declare its equivalent of DefCon FIve on the new H1N1 flu virus, stay tuned for details on what that really means.

Continue reading "Morning Rounds: Tobacco Is Topic A, Kids Drugs Are OK, Docs Diagnose Health Plan" >

by Allison Aubrey

E.R.'s hot doc James Carter (Noah Wylie) needed no help looking sharp in his labcoat and tie--but are those long sleeves and layers a hazard to patients?

At its annual meeting later this month, the American Medical Association will consider a wardrobe revolution that many believe could limit the spread of MRSA and other dangerous infections in hospitals.

"I think the ties should go" says Peter Ragusa, a 4th year medical student at the University of Minnesota. Ragusa explains that neck ties as well as the long-sleeves on the standard white-doctor jackets can harbor bacteria.

He's a fan of the "bare below the elbows" approach recently adopted in the United Kingdom.

Continue reading "Should Docs Ditch Their Neckties?" >

By Deborah Franklin

What's in your portfolio? Big Insurance has a lot of Big Tobacco /New England Journal of Medicine, 2009

 

Three Harvard doctors have done a little digging through the investment portfolios of several leading U.S. and British health and life insurance companies, and are crowing today about what they've learned.

"In case there is any doubt that insurers place profit above health, consider their investments in tobacco," the docs write in their letter published in the June 4 New England Journal of Medicine.

Continue reading "Health Insurers Have Billions in Tobacco Stocks" >

categories: Doctors, Public Health, Tobacco