Better Health Care Newsletter from Patrick Malone
- When Hospital Errors Follow You Home
- May 2013
- What Survivors of Patient Harm Can Expect
How a Hospital Error Hurts the Emotional Healing Process
Postscript from Patrick Malone:
Learn More About Your Rights and How to Reduce the Harms of Medical Errors
- The Truth Will Out: Gaps in the Science of Nontraditional Medicine
- April 2013
- A Prescient Warning about the Shortage of Critical Thinking
Science Is the Tortoise...
... Alternative Medicine Is the Hare
When Nontraditional Medicine Does Not Put Safety First
- Conventional and Alternative Medicine: A Delicate Co-Existence
- March 2013
- Defining the Terms and Surveying the Field of Nontraditional Medicine
Why People Turn to CAM
Does This Stuff Ever Work?
- Nurse Practitioners as Primary Care Providers
- February 2013
- What Is a Nurse Practitioner?
An Expanding Role
Considering Cost
With Change Comes Resistance
Focus on the Patient
- Deep Thoughts for the New Year: Ethical Quandaries of Medical Advances
- January 2013
- Six Troubling Issues in Medical Technical Advances
Recent Health Care Blog Posts
- Traveling for Major Medical Care at Someone Else's Expense: Is This the Future?
- December 2012
- How the Medical Vacation Came to Be
Who Pays?
Not Everyone Qualifies
How to Be a Smart Surgical Traveler
- Why Reading Your Medical Records Can Improve Your Health
- November 2012
- Following the Plan
Too Much Information? Not to Worry
How to Obtain and Understand Your Medical Records
- Learning Your Own DNA Sequence: the Promise and Peril of Genetic Testing
- October 2012
- So What Exactly Is DNA?
What DNA Testing Is Currently Possible
The Pharmacogenomic Promise
The TMI Problem with DNA Testing
The Bottom Line: Advice for Sensible DNA Testing
- You Can Go Home Again (from the Hospital), but There's a Lot You Need to Know First
- September 2012
- Essential Questions to Ask to Know if You're Ready to Go Home
Make Sure You Get Results of Late Tests
Key Things to Watch Out for Once You're Home
What if You Want Out Now, and Caregivers Disagree?
- Eat, Drink and Be Wary: The Truth about Diet Supplements and Sports Drinks
- August 2012
- Diet Supplements: Not a Fruit, Not a Vegetable, Not Worth Taking
Sports Drinks: Many Claims, Little Evidence of Benefit
Better Habits Beat Supplements in the Goal of Improving Health
Recent Health Care Blog Posts
- What's Wrong with the Pregnancy Health Care Assembly Line
- July 2012
- Ten Overused Baby Delivery Technologies
How to Improve Your Odds of a Safe, Natural Childbirth
Recent Health Care Blog Posts
- How Good Is Health Care Delivered in Retail Stores?
- June 2012
- Why We Need Retail Clinics
The Cost Advantage of Knowing the Price Up Front
Coordinating Care: The Key Quality Issue
Making the Most of Retail Health Care
- The Unknowable Cost of Medical Care
- May 2012
- The Costs of Care Then Versus Now
How Hard It Is to Get Basic Cost Numbers
What You Can Do to Check Out Costs
Recent Health Care Blog Posts
- A Healthy Heart: Unlocking the Key to Long Life
- April 2012
- A Maintenance Plan for the Heart
Heart Risk Factors You May Not Know
Some Interesting Health Care Blog Posts
- Revisiting Cancer Screening -- the Colonoscopy Conundrum
- March 2012
- Colonoscopy Saves Lives but Only If You Get One
Another Reasonable Option for Colon Cancer Screening
- When a Leader Becomes a Follower: Health Care Lessons from a Symphony Conductor
- February 2012
- The Importance of Being There
A Cancer Journey's Lessons for the Rest of Us
Some Interesting Health Care Blog Posts
- New Year's Tuneup: A Health Care Newsletter
- January 2012
- Vaccines: Life-Long Preventive Care
Screening and Prevention Tests that Work
Recent Health Care News You Should Know About
- Saying No to Your Doctor: Sometimes Wrong but Always Right
- December 2011
- Refusing Health Care Is OK, as Long as You Have the Facts
Sorting Your Options for Colon Cancer Screening
- The Second Opinion: Trust, but Verify
- November 2011
- Why We Hesitate to Get a Second Opinion
Seven Ways Second Opinions Improve Our Health Care
Making the Second Opinion More Productive
- The One Medical Statistic You Need to Know
- October 2011
- "Number Needed to Treat:" The Simple Way to Understand What Works
How to Find the Number Needed to Treat for Just About Any Condition
Some Eye-Popping NNT Numbers for Breast Cancer Screening
- Those TV News Doctors: Good Advisors or Fear Mongerers?
- September 2011
- TV Doctors Pump Calcium Heart Screening Test, but Leave Out the Other Side
Following the Money Trail When TV Doctors Push the C-Reactive Protein Test
What Neutral Experts Say about the New Heart Screening Tests, and Some Simple Advice for You
- Helping Your Doctor Make the Right Diagnosis
- August 2011
- How Bringing an Ally to the Doctor's Office Can Help You Get Better Care
Switching Doctors When You Need to
More Reading on Getting the Right Diagnosis
- Finding the Right Hospital for You
- July 2011
- The Volume Rule - and an Important Refinement
Two Appeals Court Decisions Worth Knowing About: Report from the Malpractice Trenches
- Rules of Thumb for Better Health Care: When Instinct Can Guide You in the Right Direction
- June 2011
- Rule One: Avoid Superior Doctors
A Rule of Thumb for Scheduling Surgery
Open House This Week at Our New Office
- Talking to Your Doctor When You Can't Speak
- May 2011
- Some Eye-Opening Numbers about Your Odds of Landing in an ICU
The Health Care Power of Attorney
The Living Will -- and Some Questions to Think About
- When the Doctor Isn't Sure: What You Can Do
- April 2011
- The Most Vital Question You Can Ask Your Doctor
Talking to Your Primary Care Doctor: What You Need to Ask
Why Doctors Are Vulnerable to Misdiagnosis
- When a Conversation Can Save a Life
- March 2011
- A quick introduction to "informed consent"
Talking to Your Surgeon: What You Need to Ask
Myth versus Reality in Medical Decision-Making
- Essential Tips for Doing Your Own Health Care Research
- February 2011
- WebMD: Another Hype Alert
Top Sources for Reliable Health Care Information on the Internet
One Click to a Healthy Diet
- Separating Fact from Hype in Health Care Advice
- January 2011
- A quick reality check: Reviewing medical journalism and rating its accuracy
Overrated Medications: A Family Doctor Speaks Out
Look for this "Miranda Warning" on so-called health products
- A Safer, Healthier Hospital Stay (Part Two of a series on preventing injury in the hospital)
- December 2010
- Washing the Hands: An Old-Fashioned Way to Save a Life in the Hospital
Blood clots: What is the plan, doctor?
Wrong medicine, wrong dose: What you can do.
- Protecting a Loved One in the Hospital (One of a series on getting the best medical care)
- December 2010
- Step One: Have Someone in the Hospital Room at All Times
Two potentially deadly but preventable harms: Falls and bed sores
Next newsletter: More Preventable harms: Wrong medicine, infections, blood clots.
- The Joys of Being a Health Care Skeptic (One of a series)
- November 2010
- Medical Research: A Play in Five Acts
The True Numbers for Breast Cancer
A Chart of Death Trends
Most Research Findings Are Wrong
- Your First Step to the Best Medical Care (One of a series)
- October 2010
- Why Getting & Reading Your Medical Records Can Save a Life
Resources for Getting Your Records
Cracking the Code: Here's How
- Colon Cancer: How to Save Your Life by Finding the Right Doctor to Do Your Screening Exam (One of a series: Becoming a Smarter Consumer of Health Care in 2010)
- September 2010
- Two Questions You Must Ask to Get a Competent Colon Cancer Screening Test
How Often Do Patients Get an Inadequate Colonoscopy?
- Preventive Care: What Works? What Do I Need to Stay Healthy? (One of a series: Becoming a Smarter Consumer of Health Care in 2010)
- August 2010
- The Shingles Vaccine: A Small Hassle Now to Prevent Much Misery Later
What Every Adult American Needs: A Simple List of Preventive Medical Care that Works
Not on the List: The Executive Physical or Expensive Scans
- When Less Is More for Treating Back Pain and Heart Disease (One of a series: Becoming a Smarter Consumer of Health Care in 2010)
- July 2010
- Simple Is Best for Most Back Surgeries
Many Unneeded Heart Stents
A Postscript: People Like Us
- Understanding Numbers in Medicine: Easier than You Might Think, and More Important Too
- June 2010
- Count the Patients If You Want to Know the Real Scoop
How to Read Numbers: The Tamoxifen story
A New Approach: The "Drug Facts" Box
- How Do You Find The Best, Safest Hospital?
- April 2010
- How to look for the Right Hospital
Check Out What Other Patients Have Said on the Medicare Website
More Resources
- The Dilemma of Modern Medical Care: More Is Not Always Better
- March 2010
- Lessons from Heart Attack
Removal of a Healthy Breast
Cancer Screening
- Experience Counts: What you need to know before choosing a surgeon
- January 2010
- Practice Makes Perfect: Essential Knowledge for Anyone Facing Surgery or Any Medical Procedure
Finding the Answers on Your Surgeon's Experience
Your Legal Right to Know Your Surgeon's Experience
- A New Start for 2010: Becoming a Smarter Consumer of Health Care
- January 2010
- Conflicts of Interest: Why Should Patients Care?
The First Step: It Gets Easier
