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 ReadingDoctor-Patient Relationship
A 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 ReadingPsychiatrists’ Conflicts of Interest Taint Drug Recommendations for Kids
Nearly every week, we hear more evidence that American children are over-medicated, especially with drugs that affect mood and behavior. Most recently, a panel of experts has denounced the overuse of Risperdal, a powerful antipsychotic drug, for attention deficit disorder. The drug has too many side effects, including potential development of permanent muscle twitching, to….
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 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 ReadingThe Biggest Risks You Face in the Hospital
Forbes Magazine has an informative article on the frequency of hospitals making mistakes while caring for patients, pointing out that 1.5 million Americans fall victim to such errors every single year. Some of these errors occur through sheer carelessness: for example, 100,000 people a year die from “superbugs,” bacteria that are resistant to available antibiotics…..
Continue ReadingInsurance Companies Deny Doctors’ Orders; Patients Suffer
The Toledo Blade has a good article with stories from patients whose crucial treatments, ordered by doctors, have been denied or delayed by insurance companies. It begins with the harrowing story of Randy Steele, who died after the kidney-liver transplant that could have saved his life was stalled by his insurer. Even if patients do….
Continue ReadingDoctors and Women Patients
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:….
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