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Most Popular
When Pain Never Goes Away, How Can Doctors Help?
New Study Shows "Nearly Everyone with HIV Can Be Treated Effectively"
Pandemic Flu Monitor: H1N1...The Whole World Over
One Hour of Exercise a Day Helps Teens at Genetic Risk for Obesity to Keep Weight Normal
Obese Kids 63% More Likely to Be Bullied than Average-Weight Classmates
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Most Recent
How Can a Doctor Choose Medications for Patients Without Data Comparing New Ones to Existing Ones? Half of the Time, They Don’t Have That
Sex Research Review: WSJ Columnist Tells You What’s What
Watch Out for Diet Used by Mother of Bride for Royal Wedding
Victims and Bullies Spend More Time with School Nurses, Study Says
Would You Spend All You Had to Buy Time If You Had Cancer? See Who Would or Wouldn’t
Archives: How To Speak Doctor
Patient-Centered Medical Homes…The Clinical Dream House of the Future?
If you have not heard the term medical home or patient-centered medical home, you need to know about it.
This is the way many experts think would be the best way to organize primary care but it is a challenging model for care delivery. That said, all of the associations representing primary care physicians have endorsed [...]
Topics: How To Speak Doctor
How to Be a Happier Patient? Find a Doctor Who Sits with You, Study Shows
This study examined what patients thought about how much time the doctor spent with them depending upon whether the doctor sat or stood. That’s it. That’s the only variable.
Topics: How To Speak Doctor
How to Speak Health Care Reform…Without Bothering Your Doctor
People are talking about health care reform but they don’t know much.
That, this New York Times story says, prompts them to ask their doctors.
They don’t know much yet, either. The law is 2,400 pages long.
What Can You Do?
You can do a lot of fact-finding without taking your important minutes with your doctor.
Your doctor has not [...]
Topics: How To Speak Doctor
British Medical Students’ Bias Against Obesity Easily Modified with More Information About Genetic and Environmental Risks, Study Suggests
Something’s got to change in the way physicians work with obese patients. There are too many of them and their numbers are growing world-wide.
Topics: How To Speak Doctor
Today Is Health Care Decisions Day…Make Yours
The New York Times Pauline W. Chen, M.D., whose Doctor and Patient column always is worth reading, reminds everyone to complete your advance directive while you are well and capable of making these end-of-life decisions.
It is important to understand these documents speak for you when you cannot. These are the proof your chosen representative has [...]
Topics: How To Speak Doctor
Best Doctor Quote of the Day
DB Medrants
“Why do we not listen well to patients? Any physician can provide several reasons. We learn (and sometimes taught) to discount patient complaints. We focus on our time rather than the patient’s time, because our irrational payment system rewards us for the number of patients we see rather than for [...]
Topics: How To Speak Doctor
Who’s Missing in Hospital Patient’s Care? Maybe the Patient’s Own Doctor
Do you know people who have been hospital patients who wondered why they did not see their own doctor? Instead, have you been that patient? The newest major specialty in medicine is the “hospitalist.” The specialty is built on internal medicine and its practitioners see only hospital patients.
Topics: How To Speak Doctor
More Is Not Better: Watch Out for Back Surgery Recommendations, JAMA Says
NPR’s Joanne Silberner reports on a major increase in back surgeries—15-fold in six years.
The Journal of the American Medical Association offers the full study free.
“Rates of surgery for lumbar stenosis declined slightly from 2002-2007, but use of more complex procedures increased substantially. More complex procedures were associated with greater complications, mortality, [...]
Topics: How To Speak Doctor
Obese Patients Receive Care Just as Good as Normal-Weight Patients
When patients and physicians need to communicate, there is a list of the toughest topics—ones in which it is much easier for the conversation to cause misunderstandings.
Patients long have felt that doctors dislike obese patients and that dislike affects their care.
Weight, or more specifically, obesity, is at the top of the list. Although the [...]
Topics: How To Speak Doctor
Young Doctor Died While Not Taking Her Own Advice
A doctor who guided dying patients to what is called a “good death” refused to take the same advice she gave others, the same advice her trusted colleagues gave others. Hers is an extraordinary story of a woman who broke every guideline for patients facing terminal conditions. She had been a breast cancer patient and thought she had beat it.
Topics: How To Speak Doctor
