Lying to your doctor — regardless of the reason — can mean you don’t get needed care or you don’t have the kind of working relationship you want with your physician.

Topics: Commentary, How To Speak Doctor

Google Voice will be a help for patients whose family and friends are widely dispersed. The ability to conference in farflung loved ones will make communications work more smoothly when the patient’s problem is serious.

Topics: Commentary, News

“In practical terms, federally financed researchers will now find it easier to do a particular category of stem cell experiments that, though still important, has been somewhat eclipsed by new advances.”

Topics: Commentary

The Obama administration clearly intends to let Congress take the lead, wisely, as there are legislators there who have spent decades on health care. The president has not. Why not use your experts? Smart move.

Topics: Commentary

Like the race to decode the genome between the NIH and a private company, Google may challenge the government to a similar race on medical records.

Topics: Commentary

Having spent many years inside health care, I have identified and named a reasoning disorder which afflicts people at all levels: Willful Non-Understanding Disorder. Treatment works for only a very few but our research continues. There is no cure for the hardest cases.

Topics: Commentary

“There never is a bear market for a great idea.” Believe me, in some garages or attics in this country, entrepreneurs are working on their ideas. Microsoft came out of a garage, admittedly one attached to a very successful family’s home, but a garage still.

Topics: Commentary, Friends & Families

The important thing is not whether you can pass the pop quiz but whether you read labels carefully so that you can spot trans fats and strike those from your grocery list.

Topics: Commentary

Commentary
The economy, at any time, shapes health care: insurance, care available and access to it.
A nation’s economy and the health of its citizens, collectively and individually, are intertwined.
For people who care about health issues, this is a fascinating debate to watch.
The Economist’s editors name it as one of America’s best friends but as any regular [...]

Topics: Commentary, Friends & Families, You, the Patient

Commentary
Below is an excerpt from new book by Abigail Trafford, As Time Goes By, out for Valentine’s Day.
This excerpt also ran as a newspaper column this week in the Washington Post.
Trafford, former health editor of the Washington Post, is the author of two other books. The first, Crazy Time, is about divorce. The second, My [...]

Topics: Commentary, Friends & Families