A recent case taught me a lot about how people perceive their medicines. I was trying to help a 92-year-old man get off some of his medicine. I can’t go into the details, but suffice to say, there was much opportunity to trim a long list of drugs, many of which were threatening his existence […]
Doctors and Social Media — It’s time to embrace change.
I recently took on a position of medical journal editor. It is with the Journal of Kentucky Medical Association. It’s been a good learning experience. Part of the job of editorial board members is to write an opinion column. (Check, I’ve done that before.) What follows below was published in this month’s journal. The editorial […]
Dronedarone (Multaq), clinical guidelines and patient safety
(What follows is a brief introduction for a post I wrote over at Medscape/Cardiology. The link is at the bottom of the page.) It is appropriate to worry about medical errors and patient safety. Here the low-hanging fruit is plentiful: antibiotic stewardship, automated notification of drug interactions and attention to hand washing all join a […]
The problem with testing students and doctors is what gets truncated
For me, maybe you too, the best part about science is how it disrupts the status quo. A belief, a way of doing something, a paradigm if you will, becomes entrenched. Humans love patterns. We get attached. I call this the way-it’s-always-been-done philosophy. It’s endemic in medicine, and, from what I can see, in education […]
New post up at Medscape/Cardiology — Heart Rhythm Society’s Choosing Wisely List is tentative and cursory
The Choosing Wisely campaign began in 2009 when the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation invited medical societies to own their role as “stewards of finite healthcare resources.” The movement aims to promote care that is supported by evidence, not duplicative, free from harm and truly necessary. That sounds delightful, and I wrote enthusiastically […]
The truth about early diagnosis — this is more than just a Mammogram story
The British Medical Journal published a monumental study on screening mammography this week. It’s garnered a ton of media coverage because the findings provocatively question the sacrosanct idea that early detection of breast cancer saves lives. Imagine that…Imagine if the entire pink machine was misguided. Of course, for people who have been willing to squint […]
NSAIDs — Yet another dubious “health” product at CVS
Now that the ‘healthiness’ of products sold at CVS stores is a matter of public discourse, it seems a perfect time to mention the common pain relievers known as Non-Steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs). It just so happens that two FDA advisory committees are meeting today and tomorrow to discuss the cardiovascular risks of NSAIDs. The […]
Learning what not to do…
Ali Almossawi is a young metrics engineer at Mozilla. He collaborates with the MIT media lab. He has done something quite remarkable, uplifting and useful. (And isn’t that a good thing these days.) He wrote a book called An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments. More than 500,000 people read the online version. Now there is […]
When professors make less than janitors…
…one could be pessimistic. PBS NewsHour did this story last night. Adjunct professors, many of them with doctorates, are struggling to make a living. A French literature professor uses food stamps. An English professor just up and quit. This video got me thinking about the word “value.” The MacBook delivered this as the first definition: […]
ICD and Pacemaker deactivation: It is neither physician-assisted suicide nor euthanasia
The purpose of this post is to clarify important issues about cardiac devices as they relate to deactivation. As I wrote yesterday, Paula Span of the NY Times covered this important issue earlier this week. Her coverage came about because of this Mayo Clinic paper published in JAMA-IM, which showed most patients with cardiac devices […]
ICD deactivation in the NY Times — with a quote from a blogger
The news came via a direct message on Twitter. “You got a plug in the NY times. Congrats.” (Thanks Dr. Jay Schloss.) Paula Span, author of the NY Times’ The New Old Age Blog, reported today on the issue of cardiac device deactivation in patients who are approaching end of life. The role I had […]
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