Tara Parker-Pope has a blog post about how doctors will treat women of childbearing age as “pre-pregnant,” focusing on their reproductive capacities to the detriment of their overall health. Obviously reproductive matters are an important part of overall health and can influence many other medical conditions. But so can a lot of other common issues:….
Continue ReadingCommunication
Dr. John Hickner on Test Results and Avoiding Injury from Miscommunication
The NY Times Well blog has a podcast of Dr. John Hickner, professor of family medicine at the University of Chicago, discussing why patients should always call their doctors to follow up after having a medical test done. We have previously discussed the issue of medical test results getting lost in transmission: the patient will….
Continue ReadingCommon Testing Mistakes at the Family Doctor’s Office
A new study from the journal Quality and Safety in Health Care, and discussed in the NY Times Well blog, reveals common testing mistakes by primary-care doctors. Of course, the same kinds of errors can happen in hospitals and other health care settings. Out of close to the 1,000 mistakes experienced by 590 patients, the….
Continue ReadingRules for Doctors and Patients
Tara Parker-Pope recently wrote two articles discussing fundamental rules for doctors and for patients. The rules for doctors can be boiled down to respect for the patient’s feelings and understanding that they did not come to the office in order to waste the doctor’s time for the sheer pleasure of it. Dr. Robert Lamberts, who….
Continue ReadingSenator Kennedy’s Health Care and Yours
It is instructive and interesting to read about Senator Edward Kennedy’s treatment for his brain tumor. The linked article describes the change in direction between May 20th of this year, when Kennedy’s brain cancer was first disclosed and surgery was not discussed as a possible treatment, and two weeks later, when neurosurgeons performed a “successful”….
Continue ReadingDoctor-Patient Relationships Turn Sour
Tara Parker-Pope recently had an article on how fewer and fewer patients trust their doctors. About one in four patients feel that their physicians sometimes expose them to unnecessary risk, according to data from a Johns Hopkins study published this year in the journal Medicine. And two recent studies show that whether patients trust a….
Continue ReadingFor Better Medical Care, Bring a Friend
Senior citizens who bring company to their doctor or hospital visits receive better medical care, according to a new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Of the 38.6% of elderly patients who brought a companion along on their medical visits, the most common person to bring along was a spouse or an adult….
Continue ReadingThe Dark Side of Drug Advertising
Many doctors believe that the recent sharp increase in drug advertising has altered the doctor-patient relationship for the worse. From the article: Like many doctors, Ron Ben-Ari thinks ads on TV for prescription drugs frequently go too far in touting a particular pill’s benefits without adequately presenting the risks. But Ben-Ari, who has a practice….
Continue ReadingThe Art of Pain
Pain is a tricky medical problem because it’s impossible to measure or adequately communicate to another person. Tara Parker-Pope discusses how patients in pain use art to describe what they’re going through: Sacramento resident Mark Collen, 47, is a former insurance salesman who suffers from chronic back pain. After his regular doctor retired due to….
Continue ReadingNew Project To Help Patients Manage Medical Records
A new project, conceived of by Google and the Cleveland Clinic, will try to give patients the ability to access and control their health information. This project would hopefully enable patients to give their information quickly and easily to multiple physicians and pharmacies. Such a thing would be beneficial because, as we have discussed often….
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