Everybody knows that close friendships can be wonderful, and medical researchers are now coming up with tangible evidence that friendship can pay off in longer and healthier lives as well. “Friendship has a bigger impact on our psychological well-being than family relationships,” says sociologist Rebecca Adams of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She was….
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What’s Your “Real Age”? Filling Out an On-Line Questionnaire Will Tell Drug Companies All About You
Never underestimate the ingenuity of the pharmaceutical industry in promoting its products to the American public. The latest example: The “Real Age” questionnaire that millions of people have filled out on the Internet, to tell them if their “real age,” based on lifestyle and family history, is younger or older than their chronological age. It….
Continue ReadingPatients Benefit from Getting Second Opinions
When a doctor knows that his patient would receive better care elsewhere, should he inform the patient and send him to another provider? While this question is yet to be settled among bioethicists and physicians themselves, authors of an article published recently in the journal, Public Library of Science Medicine, think doctors have an ethical….
Continue ReadingA Good Doctor is More than Well-Mannered
The convenience of the Internet allows consumers to evaluate and compare their experiences with anything from piercings and dog walking to a visit to their doctor’s office. Although the website ratings may be helpful in an initial survey of local doctors, patients should not look to them as their sole source of information when determining….
Continue ReadingStatins in Every Medicine Cabinet? Patients Need to Read the Numbers
Millions of people with normal cholesterol levels in their blood could be started on cholesterol-lowering statin drugs based on a new research study, but if patients understood the numbers behind the study, they might not move so fast to put statins in their medicine cabinet. Every patient can benefit from a closer understanding of how….
Continue ReadingLegal Case Highlights Need for Annual Skin Checks to Prevent Deadly Cancer
A recent medical malpractice lawsuit prosecuted by Patrick Malone & Associates for the victim of a delayed diagnosis of skin cancer highlights the need for annual skin checks by a qualified doctor. Anyone who is fair-skinned, sunburns easily, or has a lot of moles on their skin should see a dermatologist or a good primary….
Continue ReadingOnline Anonymous Notification of Sex Partners For STDs
An online service called inSPOT allows patients who test positive for STDs to use a website to notify sexual partners, anonymously if they so choose, of the possibility that the partners were infected. A report done by the San Francisco Department of Public Health finds that since 2004, 30,000 people have used the service to….
Continue ReadingHow to Cope With All Your Information
Tara Parker-Pope at the NY Times Well Blog has an article about how patients can cope with the vast flood of information (and misinformation) that is now available to them through the Internet. Nowadays, people can look up their symptoms, self-diagnose certain conditions, find studies about the efficacy of various treatments, and find out what….
Continue ReadingEmpathy and Time
Dr. Pauline Chen has an article about doctors, empathy and time crunches. She notes that many doctors would like to express empathy to patients when delivering terrible news, but due to the load of cases they are dealing with, are afraid of spending too much time comforting one patient when there are others that need….
Continue ReadingHospital Patients: Know The Color of Your Bracelet
Hospitals have long used color-coded bracelets as shorthand to communicate patients’ needs to doctors and nurses. For instance, a purple bracelet might indicate that a terminally ill patient does not wish to be resuscitated in the event of heart failure. Now there is a movement to standardize bracelets, preventing confusion when a health care worker….
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