Posts tagged as:

media

Everybody loses when physician conferences restrict medical news reporting

October 23, 2009

by Robert Stern, MA, CCMEP
Almost a decade ago, I had a simple idea — deliver fast, accurate medical news to clinicians in a format that was easily accessible, and turn that news into a “teachable moment.” Almost five years ago, that idea became reality with the launch of MedPage Today.
Monday through Friday (and if news [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

What if newspapers reported science the way they cover the World Series?

October 21, 2009

by Larry Husten, Ph.D.
October brings the Nobel Prize announcements and the World Series. No one will mistake media coverage of one for the other. Each Nobel Prize will get one article and 10 seconds on the evening news. A soft feature will quote the new Nobel recipient’s complete surprise at the 4 AM phone call.
By [...]

6 comments Read the full article →

How House, M.D. is affecting patients’ expectations of medical care

October 6, 2009

More patients are expecting doctors to be more like Gregory House, the fictional doctor of Fox’s House, M.D.
But when you consider how much unnecessary testing is already going on, can this be a good idea?
Well, no. But that doesn’t stop a handful of patients with rare diseases to implore that their doctors do [...]

11 comments Read the full article →

Why our health care system promotes disease maintenance

September 25, 2009

by Marya Zilberberg, MD, MPH
When I was growing up in the 1970s, news was different, and this is not just the everything-was-better-in-my-day nostalgia. News was about news. News was not sexy. What has changed? Robert Reich’s Supercapitalism, makes the answer obvious: competition.
Interestingly, according to economic theories, competition is good for the consumer – it drives [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

Why do people cling to false health reform beliefs?

September 4, 2009

Blame motivated reasoning.
Newsweek’s Sharon Begley writes about the phenomenon, which goes a long way why the myth about “death panels” continues to persist in the health reform conversation. She cites the work of sociologist Steve Hoffman, who explains: “Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually [...]

10 comments Read the full article →

Does being on the America’s Best Hospitals list affect patient outcomes?

September 4, 2009

by Charles Bankhead, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
A news magazine’s rankings of top-rated hospitals for heart failure care did not include many hospitals that performed at least as well as the ranked centers, according to a comparison of the magazine’s list and government data.
Hospitals that made the U.S. News & World Report list had a [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

H1N1 rap and a swine flu freestyle

September 3, 2009

Dr. John Clarke is the medical director of the Long Island Railroad and raps some sweet rhymes to H1N1.
“Hand sanatiza I advise ya get it why, it makes germs die when you rub and let it dry.”
Genius.

1 comment Read the full article →

Are network morning news shows an emerging public health threat?

August 28, 2009

Journalism professor Gary Schwitzer is the foremost health media watchdog, with his organization rigorously monitoring the health content of major media.
During the past year, he notes a disturbing trend. According to his analysis, the health segments on network television morning shows, “unquestioningly promote new drugs and new technologies, feed the ‘worried well’ by raising [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

How to make industry influence transparent in continuing medical education

August 25, 2009

by Larry Husten, Ph.D.
A recent hearing of the Senate Aging Committee on continuing medical education (CME) should scare anyone who might need to see a doctor in the next few years. But you don’t need to be a Washington policy wonk to discover that there’s a huge problem with CME.
Just walk into the lobby of [...]

11 comments Read the full article →

Submit a guest post on KevinMD and be heard

August 15, 2009

KevinMD is among the web’s most influential and well-read medical blogs, with almost 30,000 subscribers and 13,300 Twitter followers.
You can have the opportunity to reach this audience by submitting a guest opinion piece on anything related to health care.
Articles of about 500 words in length and free of grammatical and spelling errors are preferred. [...]

Read the full article →

Should you follow medical advice from The Huffington Post?

August 14, 2009

The Huffington Post is one of the most prominent, and fastest growing, news sites, and as pediatrician Rahul Parikh puts it, “one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on the Internet these days.”
They have a prominent health and wellness section, but as you can read from Dr. Parikh’s piece, The Huffington Post is [...]

5 comments Read the full article →

Are drug companies trying to influence health journalists?

July 10, 2009

The pharmaceutical industry has been vilified by its close association with physicians.
With reforms having distanced these two groups, it appears they are moving onto trying to influence reporters. As journalist professor Gary Schwitzer writes in a recent blog entry, Pfizer is offering journalism fellowships on cancer issues.
The program, not unlike Pharma-sponsored CME [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Can the American Medical Association still be an influential voice in health reform?

June 29, 2009

The repercussions after Obama’s speech to the AMA’s delegates continue to be felt.
Not least of which are the murmurings of the other professional physician groups, who say that the AMA does not represent a majority of physicians. In this piece from pediatrician Rahul Parikh, he notes that about 30 percent of physicians are AMA [...]

9 comments Read the full article →

How did Michael Jackson die, and the medicine behind sudden cardiac death

June 25, 2009

Michael Jackson is dead at age 50.
I’ve received several e-mails to comment on this story, but there’s really too few details to go on. I’m sure more will emerge in the near future.
According to news reports, emergency medical services were called to his home in Los Angeles, where he was found in presumed [...]

19 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries