by Vineet Arora MD

Anyone affiliated with a teaching hospital knows that the controversy regarding resident work hours is heating up again. It’s been over 5 years since the ACGME limited resident hours to 80 hours per week with a maximum of 30 consecutive hours. While this may not sound like ‘reform’, as someone who trained prior to these rules, it is definitely a change.

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by Alex Lickerman, MD

Part four of a series. See also parts one, two, and three.

When dealing with your doctor’s biases, you have on your side a fact I firmly believe to be true: most doctors want to do a good job and help their patients as best they can. So what exactly can you do to maximize your doctor’s ability to help you?

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Originally published in MedPage Today

by Kristina Fiore, MedPage Today Staff Writer

Infants don’t learn a great deal from language-acquisition DVDs, and may in fact be hindered from learning vocabulary, researchers have found.

DVDs dont help infants learn language Tots who watched such DVDs over a six-week period didn’t have better language knowledge scores than youngsters who didn’t watch, and those who first tuned in at a younger age had lower language scores, according to Rebekah A. Richert, PhD, of the University of California Riverside, and colleagues.

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Robotic surgery, which mostly used for prostate surgery, is one of the newer trends that hospitals are embracing.

But are the costs, which can reach into the millions of dollars, worth the expense?

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by Toni Brayer, MD

I went to my physical therapist yesterday for knee treatment and we talked about the fact that Blue Cross is cutting their reimbursement to the point that the cost of providing care will not even be covered. All I could do was lament with him and listen.

One insurer even told him (the owner of the business) to just “make the sessions shorter and don’t give as much care.”

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by Claudia M. Gold, MD

In the Tony award winning play God of Carnage two couples meet in an elegant living room for an ostensibly civilized conversation about the aggressive act of one couple’s child against the other’s. The meeting soon degenerates to reveal the underbelly of conflict in the two marriages. Husband and wife hurl insults, precious items and even themselves with escalating rage. We see, as they attempt in vain to focus on the children’s behavior, the proverbial “elephant in the room.”

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Originally published in MedPage Today

by Kristina Fiore, MedPage Today Staff Writer

Vaccine safety still concerns parents Even though 90% of parents believe vaccines protect their children against disease, many are also concerned about potential adverse effects, a new survey found.

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The biggest problem with today’s push for electronic medical records is an archaic user interface.

Physician Alexander Friedman, writing a scathing essay in The Wall Street Journal, agrees.

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by John Schumann, MD

One of the joys of practicing at an academic center is that I get to do many different things in my job.

The foundation of my work is seeing my own patients in a large group (more than thirty doctors!) primary care practice.

Two months a year, I take my turn rotating on the hospital inpatient services, supervising teams of residents and students who are the primary caregivers for patients with illnesses serious enough to merit hospitalization.

I also am a classroom teacher, team-teaching the Medical Ethics course taught to all first year medical students.

My work in ethics has afforded me another interesting opportunity, one that combines teaching with medical practice: For the past two years, I’ve been serving as our medical center’s living donor advocate physician.

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Eric Topol discusses the future of smartphones in health care and wireless medicine in this TEDMED 2009 lecture.

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Originally published in MedPage Today

by Michael Smith, MedPage Today North American Correspondent

Why physicians are working fewer hours Physicians are working fewer hours than they once did, the result of a decade-long decline that coincided with lower fees for their services, a study showed.

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What if your local hospital went national?

In a growing trend, big name institutions are partnering with smaller hospitals nationwide, looking to leverage their reputation.

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