The numbers are pointing to a shortage of gastroenterologists.
However given the source of the data, I'd be a little dubious. Olympus Corporation of the Americas, a company that manufactures endoscopes, commissioned the study. It certainly would be in their best interest to have more gastroenterologists trained, and use their scopes.
That being said, a recent NEJM study, which showed that colonoscopies aren't as ...
January 2009
All Stories
The waning effect of direct to consumer drug advertising
Patients have finally become wary of drug advertising they see on TV or read in a newspaper.
MedPage Today reports a study that showed that in only 3.5 percent of encounters did a patient ask about a specific new prescription medication, down from almost 16 percent five years ago.
Recent scandals and negative publicity have placed the reputation of the pharmaceutical industry only slightly higher than that ...
Would you rather have Gregory House or Marcus Welby as your doctor?
Most would prefer Dr. House.
According to a survey, the acid-tongued master diagnostician of Fox's television series (via Dr. RW) was the preference of 20 percent of respondents. The good-manned Dr. Welby was second at 13 percent.
Ironically, the 95 percent of the same respondents said bedside manner was the most important trait they looked for in a doctor, something Dr. House is definitely not known ...
Hospital scrubs and lab coats are dirty, infested with germs, and can kill
Ever see medical personnel wear their scrubs in public?
Well, they shouldn't. In a WSJ op-ed, Betsy McCaughey warns about how contaminated scrubs and lab coats can be.
65 percent of medical providers change their lab coats less than once per week, and even more disturbing, 15 percent less than once per month.
Bugs like drug-resistant C. Difficile contaminate nearly every surface, and invariably find ...
Telling lies to your doctor, and how it can kill you
13 percent of patients lie to their doctors, and almost a third "stretch the truth."
Chances are most doctors can see through the lies, and in cases like cigarettes or number of sexual partners, physicians already double or triple the numbers patients say anyways.
Why do patients lie? Reasons include "fear of judgment, the desire to appear to be a good patient, a lack of understanding ...
How do you find a good doctor, and what kind of questions should patients ask?
Are some sources of information better than others?
In another stellar piece, Pauline Chen asks leaders in the field how they would find a primary care doctor or specialist.
Advice included obtaining guidance with the help of a primary care physician, or failing that, "identifying high quality medical groups or hospitals that 'carefully monitor the quality of the clinicians affiliated with them' and that provide 'decision support, ...
KevinMD.com is a finalist in the 2008 Medical Weblog Awards
KevinMD.com has been nominated as the best medical weblog of 2008.
I'm honored to be in such esteemed company, including Clinical Cases and Images, Clinical Correlations, The Health Care Blog and the WSJ Health Blog.
I encourage you to vote, either for me or for the other worthy finalists.
Polls close on Sunday, January 18th, at midnight (EST).
Thank ...
A teddy bear blood bag for pediatric blood transfusions
Making a blood transfusion as cute as can be.
(via Ivor Kovic)
How doctors are at the mercy of ICD coding
What's the difference between ICD codes 401 and 401.0 for hypertension?
Plenty, as Dr. Rob points out. It can mean the difference of whether the physician is paid for the visit or not. He points out more inane examples, such as a positive rapid strep test that gets paid when diagnosed as "pharyngitis," but not when it's coded as "strep throat."
Coding is an important aspect ...
A woman who should have froze to death, but didn’t
How many people walk out of the hospital after presenting with a body temperature dipping into the 60's?
Well, this Minnesota woman miraculously survived her hypothermia (via Dr. Wes), after being found down in her driveway in the bitter cold.
Which goes to show there's some truth in that old ER saying, "You're not dead until you're warm and dead."
Recruiting nurses in a shortage, and lavishing gifts on applicants
If there's anything more acute than the primary care shortage, it's the nursing shortage.
Recruiting companies are getting desperate in their search for prospective nurse applicants, giving them money and gifts. And this is a nationwide phenomenon, with recruiters across the country "offering chair massages, lavish catering and contests for flat-screen TVs, GPS devices and shopping sprees worth as much as $1,000."
One Michigan company "lavished ...
A vasectomy, live on Twitter
Would you live-tweet your vasectomy?
I wouldn't. But that doesn't stop others from doing so, as this blogger gives us the play by play on his vasectomy, live on Twitter.
It's as if you're there.
Angioplasty in a healthy patient, and why preventive heart care is dismissed
The majority of angioplasties are performed on patients with stable coronary artery disease.
And yet studies have shown that angioplasties do not have a greater benefit than medication management and lifestyle changes in this demographic, and expose patients to the risk of an interventional procedure.
The NY Times cites Miami cardiologist Michael Ozner who says, "We've extended the indications for surgical angioplasty and stent placement without any ...
Can universal health care lead to a restriction of individual freedoms?
That's what this Colorado doctor is warning.
Free market advocate Paul Hsieh writes that a "nanny state on steroids" is the inevitable result of any government-sponsored universal coverage plan.
"Any government that attempts to guarantee healthcare must also control its costs," he writes, and says that the "inevitable next step will be to seek to control citizens' health and their behavior."
There is a fine ...
The unintended consequences of free HIV screening at hospitals
Select hospitals have been chosen in New York to provide free HIV screening tests.
Emergency physician WhiteCoat talks about the repercussions about this move, including the possibility of delayed treatment. He says that resources, which are already stretched too thin, are asked to shoulder the additional burden of screening. "Patients wait for stroke care," he bluntly says, "so that we can give a free HIV test ...
Will vigabatrin for seizures be approved by the FDA?
Vigabatrin is approved in Europe and Canada for the treatment of seizures.
The medication, whose brand name is Sabril, is used as adjunctive therapy for treating refractory complex partial seizures in adults and as monotherapy for infantile seizures in children. MedPage Today reports it's up for consideration by the FDA's advisory committee.
Problems arise from the drug's chief side effect, namely, a deficit in peripheral field defects. ...
Dissect a rat, warm and cuddly in knit
For those who are squeamish about dissecting real animals in biology lab.
(via Street Anatomy and Etsy)
Give me back my kidney!
A doctor demands his wife return his donated kidney.
The divorce proceedings are bitter, and now the physician is demanding his kidney back, or $1.5 million in compensation.
An ethicist who discussed the case said the demand was likely fruitless, saying "it's illegal for an organ to be exchanged for anything of value," and that "donating an organ is considered a gift."
Doctors should not ignore patient intuition
Patients seem to have an uncanny ability to predict when they're going to die.
In an excellent NY Times piece, Sandeep Jauhar (who is among the best physician-writers on the web, along with the Washington Post's Manoj Jain and The New Yorker's Atul Gawande) talks about how patients have a "sixth sense" about their own deaths.
We are in an era where tests and diagnostic studies ...
How will the media influence health reform?
Here's a fascinating look at how the media will play a major role in the upcoming health reform efforts.
The public will rely on the on media to disseminate health policy information in order to obtain informed opinions. The problem is, health policy is dry, and rarely results in attention-grabbing news. This is especially relevant as many newspapers are on the verge of bankruptcy and need ...
Kevin Pho, MD
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Why more primary care doctors are referring patients to specialists
According to a recent study from the Archives of Internal Medicine, primary care physicians are referring more patients to specialists than ever...
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Should Google censor anti-vaccine claims?
One of the reasons there is such a movement against vaccines is the democratization of information, perpetuated by search engines like Google....
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Radiologists who cheat on their board exams: Who’s to blame?
In a widely circulated CNN article, many radiologists have been found to cheat on their board exams: "Doctors around the country taking an...
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Doctors: Don’t be ashamed about going bankrupt
Are doctors really going broke? According to this piece from CNN Money, some are: "Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising...
Physician
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Patients will understand an honest mistake if the doctor tells the truth
It was 1976 and I was a junior resident in urology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. I was assigned...
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Diagnosing an illness is an art
Diagnosis is the foundation on which all care and treatments rest. If the diagnosis is wrong, most probably so is the treatment. ...
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Physicians have a natural role as advocates
As physicians, we are often called upon to be advocates for our patients. Sometimes they have no other person to turn to....
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Our society expends huge sums on futile care
Mike was a runner, outdoors-man, and fitness nut. This was not so much as for health reasons as for "feeling good", but...
Patient
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How will the Baby Boomers age and die?
I love listening to life stories. As a hospice chaplain, I loved sitting with our patients and their loved ones engaging in...
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Patient engagement is the holy grail of health care
For health care professionals, patient engagement is the holy grail of health care. It is the key to patient adherence – a...
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Why do doctors delay hospice referrals?
This is a response to Deb Discenza's article requesting a one page informational sheet informing a patient about hospice or palliative care. This would...
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How touch can calm patients
So, Megen at Not Nurse Ratched wrote post recently about therapeutic presence. The following passage really caught my attention: "Question is: are...
Policy
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Improve patient safety to improve healthcare quality
It has taken 13 years for us to revisit the issues in To Err Is Human, the 1999 landmark government report that...
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A lack of incentive for medical schools to train primary care doctors
A social media movement is happening before our eyes with action starting to take shape. The #occupyhealthcare movement has begun within to...
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What should be the stated aim of health care in America?
The triple aim of health care, as defined by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is: improving the experience of care, bettering...
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How Moneyball applies to healthcare
The storyline is familiar. An organization is challenged to achieve better results without spending more money. An executive is committed to obtaining...
Tech
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New classes of devices to diet and exercise
For many celebrities, their livelihoods depend on their physical appearance and they rely on armies of personal assistants, schedulers, stylists, trainers and...
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Repetition is the curse of the doctor-patient engagement
How many times as a doctor do you ask the same questions over and over again as part of the routine process...
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Why the prognosis of patients is difficult
Many clinical decisions in older persons are dependent on life expectancy. For example, as life expectancy declines, cancer screening is likely to...
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Innovative technologies can markedly enhance safety
“To Err Is Human” is the title of the now famous book from the Institute of Medicine on patient safety published about...
Social Media
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The Internet is where patients go for pre-visit consultations
As a physician, technology cannot replace you, but it can make you more efficient and effective. This was the message from Richard...
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5 ways doctors can benefit from professional connections
Looking ahead to the next several months, I’ve found myself frequently wondering how many physicians will make this their year to take...
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Twitter Is my third office location
The physician’s decision to first dive into social media can be stress-inducing. Issues of time management, maintaining professionalism, and determining a return...
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The impact of social media on a physician assistant
The impact of social media on medicine could arguably be compared to the impact of the industrial revolution on the human condition....
