Commentary
By Cheree Cleghorn, Editor
The cardiac surgeon stood by the ship, his wife next to him.
They had been on a week’s cruise and he looked rested. We started talking. Patient-physician communications, or the lack of them, was worrying me at levels approaching alarm. Everything was working against those two people in that doctor’s exam room. Time […]

News
Check out the video that accompanies this story and also speak up.
There are people who describe themselves as doctor-haters. They can’t always say why.
The people this writer has interviewed know exactly why their trust is eroding.
A doctor and author couldn’t agree with them more.
New York Times
(This is from her blog, Well, by Tara Parker-Pope.)
“The simmering […]

News Brief
John Tierney’s Findings Column is another favorite. He can be very bad in a very good way but also is responsible 99.9% of the time.
No, his list does not include menaces such as granite kitchen countertops or the tragedy of fabric softener, two perils announced in the last week or so. Now, maybe, if […]

News Brief
One of our favorite columns is the Department of Human Behavior by Shankar Vedantam.
Although there are people who find such a perfect match between what they love to do and somebody who will pay them to do it—-the late Tim Russert has been quoted as saying, “Can you believe they pay me to do […]

News
This is the downside of two success stories: Americans’ living longer lives and cardiologists’ ability to give patients longer lives.
Put them together, and what you get are more cases of heart failure—-not as dramatic as it sounds. Heart failure means that the heart can’t pump blood efficiently. It is a progressive condition.
U.S. News and World […]

News Brief
By Cheree Cleghorn, Editor
In addition to the huge monetary costs of mistakes, the human ones are equally important. The study cited below says that “one of every 10 patients who died within 90 days of surgery died because of a preventable error and one-third of the deaths occurred after the patient was discharged .” […]

News
Fatal medication errors (FMEs) have increased by 350.5% between 1983-2004, greater than deaths caused by accidents of all kinds, including falls and drownings, notes one expert.
This increase is greater than deaths caused by:
(1) Adverse effects of medications (up 33.2%).
(2) Alcohol and/or street drugs (up 40.9%).
Archives of Internal Medicine: July 28, 2008, Issue
Results: “The […]

News Brief
Washington Post
“A suicide hot line launched a year ago has received calls from more than 22,000 veterans of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars and has prevented 1,221 suicides, according to U.S. government figures being released Monday.
“The hot line — created jointly by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Substance Abuse and Mental […]

News Brief
This is from the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference being held in Chicago.
Three useful findings for friends and families of patients with this disease.
Los Angeles Times

News Brief
The “I-must-be-getting-old” line is old itself.
It starts in the 30s, when some start lamenting their great age.
For example, by 40, a fit young mother, who is a passionate gardener, is saying to her daughters, “Your old mother can’t bend on her knees like she used to.”
However, there is substance to these complaints of limitations, […]